From Rochester's History
A Guide to Common Alabama Grave Markers
From the Alabama Historical Commission, this PDF document is a very nice illustrated glossary of cemetery/grave marker terms.
The Project Gutenberg eBook of In Search of Gravestones Old and Curious, by W. T. Vincent.
Look at the HTML version to see images. Download zipped HTML to get copies of all images.
A few weeks ago I was at our local genealogical society meeting. Now, I'm not from around these neck of the woods, so what I learned at the meeting was quite interesting.
I thought I had found all of the cemeteries in the Bloomington-Normal area. But alas, I had not. At that meeting the "poor farm cemetery" was mentioned. I had not heard of this and thought perhaps it went by another name. I did some digging and found an article written in XX in the local paper. Turns out it's also referred to as Potter's Field. More digging on the Internet shows that it's also called the County Farm Cemetery. A look at my list of B-N cemeteries revealed that I did not have this cemetery among the ones I had previously found. In fact, I checked my Google map to see if I had it under yet another name. Nope, no flag in that spot...not even close.
The cemetery is part of the county farm's land. Those who are buried here were either residents of the poor farm or those who were unidentified or unclaimed. The first burial dates back to 1860, with the last in September 1930. Of the 500 or so burials, only 165 are marked. The markers are simple stones bearing only a number.
"If the concrete slabs knew the stories of the men at whose heads they stand guard and could tell them they would find hundreds of ready listeners, for many tragedies were sealed forever when their heroes died."
-- "Numbers Take Names' Place," Pantagraph (Bloomington, Ill.), 21 September 1930, sec. D, p. 1.
-- "Numbers Take Names' Place," Pantagraph (Bloomington, Ill.), 21 September 1930, sec. D, p. 1.
According to the information on Find A Grave, this cemetery is "landlocked and not accessible." However, an article in the Pantagraph a few weeks ago states there is no road and visitors must reach the cemetery on foot. Looks like something I need to investigate further!
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