# cemetary in the woods



## weakie (Mar 29, 2009)

last year i was hunting in a patch of woods surrounded by a development and I came across a small cemetary. It was from the early 1800's. Weird thind was that someone had dug up one of the graves. It had a big hole but the rest were untouched. There was about 20 headstones. There is no trail to it and it's in the middle of the woods. Then there is a hill adjacent to this plot and there are mounds of rocks stacked up. I'm guessing maybe 20 or so mounds. They are rocks about the size of a softball and smaller then a basketball and they are just piled up as if they were covering something, no design or any pattern. I cant figure out what they are for. I did a google search and still cant get a clear idea what they are. They are maybe 4-6 ft long by 3-4 ft wide and just kind of "mound" up from the ground. This spot is in the middle of the woods with nothing around it. I'm wondering if it used to be a plantation and the mounds are the slaves? Anyone have any thoughts as to what it may be?


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## rubicon_in_ga (Mar 29, 2009)

Very possible it could be slave graves, or sharecropper family plot.  The real way to tell if it was a plantation, church, sharecroppers, or slave graves comes down to the specifics of the graveyard.  Were the graves laid out haphazard or perfectly spaced almost like a grid?  Were the headstones cut stone, marble, or just fieldstone placed upright?  Did any stones have markings, names or engravings?  Also the overall size of the cemetery would help determine the occupants.  

Usually a plantation would have more money for a more elaborate cemetery, graves layed out in a grid, evenly spaced, well marked and engraved headstones, and possibly a fence or rock border marking the perimeter of the cemetery.  

A church graveyard would typically be layed out in grid fashion, evenly spaced, but how well marked the individual graves were would depend on the particular family who's members were buried there.  If it was a poor community, chances are the graves are very plainly marked with only square or rounded fieldstone.  

Slaves were usually the poorest of the poor, and the graves were often only marked with wooden crosses or wood plank headstones, which would have long since rotted away by now, and alot of times the only real way to tell anything was there are the depressions left in the ground where the coffins and bodies have rotted to nothing over the years.  

Sharecroppers are usually similar to slave cemeterys, however they would often take more time to mark the graves with fieldstones turned upright as headstones.  Typically sharecroppers would only have small family plots of less than 10 graves unless it was a community cemetery.  

As for the rock mounds, truth be told, I'm really not certain, and don't have any good guesses, but I came across some just like you're describing in an area of the Oconee Nat'l Forest.  This area is VERY flat for probably a 40 acre or more spread, with rock piles maybe one ever hundred yards or so, with no discernable pattern.  I'd love to metal detect the area just to see if anything could be found, but I have no clue what they're from.  The only thing I can think, is maybe (since the land is so flat) it was once land cleared for a field, and the rocks were fieldstone piles that were plowed up, and the rocks were just never used for anything (building foundations, rock walls, chimneys, etc).  

There's a website somewhere that lists alot of known family, church, plantation, and slave cemeterys here in Georgia.  I can't for the life of me remember the link, but if I come across it again I'll post it here.  

Good luck finding out more info about it!  I know it's a bit morbid, but I love cemetery and grave history.   I've probably got a hundred pics on my computer of graves at a nearby church that's been there since the early 1800's.


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## Todd E (Mar 29, 2009)

Thanks for the read, rubicon.

Learned a lot from your post !!!!!


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## 686wheelman (Mar 29, 2009)

Todd E said:


> Thanks for the read, rubicon.
> 
> Learned a lot from your post !!!!!



+1 you are very knowledgeable on the subject.


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## xhunterx (Mar 29, 2009)

I tend to agree that the random piles of stones were probably piled up when plowing land. every year you would still turn up more rocks and just throw them on the pile. lots of piles around here in the woods that were once fields many years ago. another clue, does the surrounding land have terraces? lots of big woods here now but you can find where they were terraced off for farming before


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## crackerdave (Mar 29, 2009)

Todd E said:


> Thanks for the read, rubicon.
> 
> Learned a lot from your post !!!!!



So did I! 
I think you're right about the rockpiles,too.Most everything that is now woods was once farm or cotton land,and I agree - when the plows turned up rocks,they piled 'em up so they wouldn't bust their plow on it next time around.


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## 30 06 (Mar 29, 2009)

Food for thought could the stones have anything to do with Indian artifacts/mounds?


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## GONoob (Mar 30, 2009)

Whenever a rider passes away everyone would throw a rock into a pile as a memorial and spread there ashes on top of it.


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## NOYDB (Mar 30, 2009)

Also keep in mind that various places around GA there are "mounds" that were made during the civil war by soldiers creating a place to hide behind. They're not all in famous battlefields either.


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## Twenty five ought six (Mar 30, 2009)

Almost certainly the stones on the hill are field stones removed from a cultivated field.

One way to check for graves is that they will almost universally be oriented on an east-west axis.


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## weakie (Mar 30, 2009)

Thank you for your guys input. These rock pile mounds are scattered throughout the hill. They are also in the middle of the woods about 30 yards seperate from the other cemetary. There isnt really any land to farm and also these rocks are scattered up and down a ridge. Its not super sttep but i dont see how they could have farmed here. The woods are all hardwoods and I'm talking BIG hardwood trees, they have to be really old trees.The cemetary on top of the hill all have headstones but they are so weathered I can only read the newest one which is in the 1800's but i dont remember the name.


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## weakie (Mar 30, 2009)

This is not the actual rock pile but it is very similair to the ones I found. Keep in mind that there are many scattered mounds like this, It has obviously been put there by someone


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## Six million dollar ham (Mar 30, 2009)

GONoob said:


> Whenever a rider passes away everyone would throw a rock into a pile as a memorial and spread there ashes on top of it.


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## Mountainguy (Mar 30, 2009)

Since I don't have a picture to go by this is just a guess. some of the old graveyards that ive seen around the "athens area" and in the Smokies have rock piles that used to be part of an old rock wall that surrounded the graveyard/homestead area. just a thought....

By the way, there's a grave in the Athens area that has a headstone stating it was a soldier from the Indian Wars. pretty cool


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## rubicon_in_ga (Mar 31, 2009)

I honestly thought I was being too long winded! lol  I'm a history buff, so whenever I find something neat like a forgotten cemetery I try to learn as much info as I can about it!  

Just for kicks, here's some pics I've taken.  

The first one is from some old sharecropper graves that are on my grandparents property.  It's pretty hard to tell from the picture, but there are actually three distinct graves here.  The story I was always told was that it was a family, husband, wife, and young child, who died of some illness or disease and were all buried next to each other.  The large flat rock is the headstone of the largest grave, and it's bordered with smaller fieldstones.  

The second picture is of a small cemetery plot at the GA International Horsepark.  If anyone is familiar with the area, it's in the small grove of trees on top a small hill, right near the redlight at the intersection with Costley Mill Rd.  The short stone wall bordering the cemetery appears to be newer than the graves, albeit still very old.  If I were to guess, I'd say it's probably a family cemetery plot, because it's too small to be church plot, and I do know there was once a mill complex located on the Yellow River very close by the Horsepark, and the surrounding community was called simply "Yellow River."  You can see the area on some of the old maps of GA, but it disappears from the maps around the time of the civil war.  There's also a very old abandoned church just up Costley Mill Rd that is built from stone that looks very similar to the stone wall around these graves.  My assumption would be that the rock wall and the church were probably built around the same time or by the same group of people.  The distance between the church and these graves however (about a mile distance) is another reason why I think it was a family plot, not a church cemetery.

The last three pics are from the Old Salem Primitive Baptist Church located near Dial Mill Rd and Hwy 138 north of Conyers.  Some of these graves are very old, dating back to the early 1800's.  The first pic is an above ground tomb (if I'm using the right word).  I think that's when the casket was layed in a shallow grave or possibly right on the ground and then a rock pile was built over top of it.   The second pic is some hand engraving that was done on a more elaborate tomb, made out of large slabs of granite.  You can tell from the pic it's not very straight or ornamental, and from the looks of it, I think it's really old.  The last picture is the same graveyard, with some of the granite slab tombs in the background and some fieldstone headstones in the foreground.  This graveyard is a huge mix of wealthy mill owners and descendants, local plantation and large farm owners, sharecroppers, and from the looks of it, your run of the mill average farm workers.  I don't think any of these graves would be slaves however, because the church dates from such an early time that I doubt seriously the predominantly white church congregation of the time would have approved of integration in the cemetery.

Glad ya'll enjoyed the read!  My wife tells me I'm too smart for my own good sometimes, and it's a rare moment when I get to share something I really enjoy like history!  I looked and looked to try to find the website where i found all the info on the unmarked Georgia cemeteries but  for the life of me I can't find it.  There's a ton of info out there though and sometimes it takes some looking, but you can usually find a little something to go on!


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## LJay (Mar 31, 2009)

I found an old cemetary close to my house back in the woods. No names on the markers, just rocks. They were all oriented East West. I have some pics somewhere. I'll round them up and post them. Probably slaves or sharecroppers.


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## Rays123 (Mar 31, 2009)

i know back years and years ago if people died during the winter and the ground was to frozen to dig they would pile mounds of rocks on top of the body as sort of a grave above ground.


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## josh chatham (Apr 1, 2009)

Did you find those near Buford?  I used to live in Dacula and we used to hunt behind Hog Mountain.  There were 2 ridges that faced eachother that had over 100 old indian graves.  They looked alot like what you described.  We also used to find a ton of arrowheads and spear heads whenever we would do some plowing.  I wish i would have gotten pics of those graves.  Anyway, maybe they are old indian graves!!


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## Jhunt (Apr 1, 2009)

weakie said:


> Weird thind was that someone had dug up one of the graves. It had a big hole but the rest were untouched.



Or, maybe someone crawled out?   I wouldn't want to hunt near there.


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## Jeff Raines (Apr 2, 2009)

I had a lease in Hancock county with old graves.Rocks stood on end to mark head and feet,the ground was sunk in where the bodies once were.


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## short stop (Apr 2, 2009)

back in the   1800s    early 1900s     folks dint have $  to   but  headstones  ..
 Around  here  I know  folks  who have  kin buried in    graveyards  Morgan / Greene   .. They  were buried   with only   1 or 2  headstones    in the   graveyard   the  rest    of the graves  90%  have depressions     and only a  field stones  as markers   -- usually  a family plot  10   -20   graves .. All related  when you can  get some info . 
   Family    ties  still  run deep  .   I know  some who  still   look after the   graves  burning off   the   leaves  once a yr  and  placing new rocks     on the  graves  as the  others    sink into the ground .. They   can even rattle  off   names   of   whos  who   and where ...  To me    it  was   worth a   good   hr  or two     to  learn   a' lil  history from them .

 rock piles  ..   well those  coulda been from a wall  or   a pile  from  a share cropper . If you ever  plowed a field   you have to  tote  the rocks  outside  the field  and    most  piled them up to use  for  various  uses   later on ..

   Your  grave yard  might not look like  farm land now  but  Id  be willing to bet  back in the 1800s  it  did ..    give a place 100  yrs  and  big trees   can grow   if   unmolested ..


  Rubicon   :  great read    as well    ..Ty


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## Darkhorse (Apr 3, 2009)

Some of these old graveyards predate the 1800's. Georgia was one of the original colonies. My paternal grandmother always used that in her teachings of our family history.
There are numerous old family plots on the lands that once were part of Ocmulgee WMA. The most secluded of these seldom if ever had headstones just a few scattered stones (not rock piles). These are known to the state and have been surveyed. I found most of them because of the yellow warning tape around them.
The oldest of these have holes in the ground. These holes come from the old wooden casket or the body decomposing into nothingness. I suppose they could be spooky if one chose to see them that way.

Most of the rock piles do indeed come from the years the land was worked with a plowshare. One thing to look for is several piles of rocks in a given area and not one huge pile. Reason being it takes too much time and effort to carry all the rocks to one central location. Rather several piles were started at different points in the field.

Another thing of interest I found on Ocmulgee a couple of decades ago is an old mill site. There are no bits of rusting steel or rotting timbers to give the place away. One day I was standing one of 2 huge rocks yelping away trying to entice a gobbler. I had stood here often but this day I looked down at the split rock I was standing on and noticed striations on the surface. After cleaning away the leaves and dirt I found 1 mill stone broken in two and another whole. These were the largest mill stones I've ever seen. A year or so later I came in from the other side of the creek and set up and killed a bird. While going after him I noticed I was set up on the old earthen dike that contained the mill pond itself. It was covered with huge trees that had grown up on it and camoflauged the area.
No telling how old that place was.


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## dawg2 (Apr 3, 2009)

Six million dollar ham said:


>



It was an Indian tradition.


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## christy (Apr 3, 2009)

A couple years ago I hunted on some land that belonged to my g-mothers neighbor in woodland, ga on hwy 36.  Back probably a 1/4 mile in the woods is the same type of graveyard.  There are dozens of graves most of them sunken in.  There is one that has a gate around it with a roof over it.  I cant remember right off what the headstone said but I do remember it being a young boy about 12 or so.  There several of those 'mounds' around too but they are made from flat rocks about 3" thick and about 10"x5" and they are stacked perfectly.  I'm not sure the history of the area but it is an interesting place.  I will have to go and take some pics sometime soon.


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## JW2 (Apr 3, 2009)

weakie said:


> last year i was hunting in a patch of woods surrounded by a development and I came across a small cemetary. It was from the early 1800's. Weird thind was that someone had dug up one of the graves. It had a big hole but the rest were untouched. There was about 20 headstones. There is no trail to it and it's in the middle of the woods. Then there is a hill adjacent to this plot and there are mounds of rocks stacked up. I'm guessing maybe 20 or so mounds. They are rocks about the size of a softball and smaller then a basketball and they are just piled up as if they were covering something, no design or any pattern. I cant figure out what they are for. I did a google search and still cant get a clear idea what they are. They are maybe 4-6 ft long by 3-4 ft wide and just kind of "mound" up from the ground. This spot is in the middle of the woods with nothing around it. I'm wondering if it used to be a plantation and the mounds are the slaves? Anyone have any thoughts as to what it may be?



Wow, cool find!


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## steve woodall (Apr 3, 2009)

Just a thought, but if there is a grave yard near by  could it just be the rocks that they removed from those graves? Everytime I have tried to dig a hole around here I end up with a rock pile bigger than the hole.


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## virgil (Apr 3, 2009)

josh chatham said:


> Did you find those near Buford?  I used to live in Dacula and we used to hunt behind Hog Mountain.  There were 2 ridges that faced eachother that had over 100 old indian graves.  They looked alot like what you described.  We also used to find a ton of arrowheads and spear heads whenever we would do some plowing.  I wish i would have gotten pics of those graves.  Anyway, maybe they are old indian graves!!



i am very close to hog mountain and ride horses where you are talking about. there are over 100 stacked rock grave sites. it was very interesting seeing all of those rocks.


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## Cavalry Scout (Apr 3, 2009)

I remember hearing that in the old days they would pile rocks on top of graves to keep the critters from digging in the soft ground.


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## weakie (Apr 4, 2009)

josh chatham said:


> Did you find those near Buford?  I used to live in Dacula and we used to hunt behind Hog Mountain.  There were 2 ridges that faced eachother that had over 100 old indian graves.  They looked alot like what you described.  We also used to find a ton of arrowheads and spear heads whenever we would do some plowing.  I wish i would have gotten pics of those graves.  Anyway, maybe they are old indian graves!!



I live near the dividing line from buford and Hall county. I live in the subdivision Reunion if you know where that is. This spot is right near me. I found another site where this guy found similair things. He said that the Indians used quartz to cover the bodies. I told him that I dont really know what quartz looks like and he said they would be white rocks which they are. He also asked if they all face one direction which was odd because they are all on the side of a hill facing the same way. He also asked if they face east which they also do. Without seeing them himself, he said that it sounds like they may be indians. 

I dont know much about the old practices but it doesnt seem like a spot that they would carry stones to because they are on a pretty decent hill and i couldnt imagine farming along all these steep ridges. its not just one hill but rather several ridges that kinda roll one after the other. I guess they still could have farmed it though.

It has seriously aroused my curiousity for sure. I guess i will never really know for sure. You guys have mentioned Hog Moutain, do you know the power lines that run through Reunion and border the Park at chestnut Moutain? well its close to those woods. I dont know what kind of history there is around that area.

I have another question for anyone who might know it, i used to live in a subdivision called "Reflections". It is off of Sardis Church  and  Thompson Mill rd in Buford. It is also on the dividing line off hall county and gwinnett. Does anyone know what used to be there before that subdivision was put up?


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## Gentleman4561 (Apr 4, 2009)

Very interesting subject good luck finding exactly what they are


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## Indian Arrowhead Man (Apr 9, 2009)

"Discoid" headstones (often made of wood) are one of the 'classic' headstone types from northern GA, SC, eastern TN and western NC...(southern Apalachia) region.  Very distinctive.  Most date late 1700's to mid 1800's, peak in the 1800 - 1840 period.  Most are rather small (as were most 'middle class' headstones) of the period.  Average size of the disc at the top was about 2/3 the size of a common dinner plate.

I love old cemeteries, too.  The range of materials, markings and so forth are fascinating.

Also, just for accuracy, most above ground graves made with field rocks were not done because the ground was frozen too hard for digging (not likely down here in the south) but rather because the ground where such rocks are found is so rocky and the top soil often rather shallow that it was just too hard to dig through the rock and/or not too deep before a rock vein was hit.  I see identical rock graves throughout the fall line area of AL, GA and SC.


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## Gentleman4561 (Apr 12, 2009)

Just saw a old graveyard at Lake Russel WMA.  Dated back to early 1900 but im sure some that i couldnt read were a lot older.  It was the site of the Farmer family


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## Tom W. (Apr 13, 2009)

A lot of graves , especially of civil war soldiers, were marked with a cedar tree planted at the head of the grave, and a small rock placed at the foot. Most all graves, as stated earlier, are orientated with the feet pointed to the east, the reason being so that when the Lord comes again and people arise from the graves, they will be facing east, the direction from which Christ will reappear.


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## saltysenior (Apr 13, 2009)

set up  one dark morning in s.c. turkey hunting...had not been to the area before.....when it was lite and i looked around i noticed i was sitting in a depression ... other depressions[about 10] were in 2 rows of 5...then i found slate type stones with letters barely eligible  on them.. i knew it was an old,old grave yard....it was on n.f.s. land and when i told a forest ranger about it later,he told me not to tell anyone about it....seems it becomes a big problem for them when an old graveyard is found on forest service land....


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