Garage dig uncovers 163-year-old grave marker

CHILLICOTHE – Growing up in the Elm Street home he lives in today, Todd Tinker spent his childhood as most children do — running, playing, rolling around and laughing in his back yard.

Until recently, the 52-year-old had no idea he was running, playing, rolling and laughing over a buried piece of local history.

Tinker is adding a detached garage to his property, and in preparation for the work, he grabbed a pickaxe and started digging a thin, shallow trench from his house to the garage location in order to run electrical service between the two structures. Not far behind the house, his tool hit something solid less than six inches below the surface.

"I was out here by myself, I had a friend who was going to come over and help me dig and he hadn't gotten here yet," Tinker said. "I turned it over and I stood there for a good while looking at it and reading it over and over again and I took a picture of it and went inside. (My friend) got here and I said, 'I've got to show you something.'"

What Tinker had discovered, lying face down just under the surface, was a stone slab about a foot wide by about two to three feet tall. Deeply engraved into its front surface are the words "Eliza M., Dau. of Abigal W. Cook, Died Aug. 16, 1852, Aged 1 yr., 3 mo." Having been under the surface and out of the ravages of wind and snow for decades, the engraving remains very clearly legible.

"I was kind of stunned," Tinker said. "When it turned over, I was kind of freaked out."

Tinker's initial reaction turned to curiosity. After he dug a bit in the area around the marker to make sure no other surprises were waiting, he reached out to the Ross County Historical Society to try and find out something about how the slab came to literally be right under his feet all these years and to try and learn something about the names on it.

"I grew up here and lived here a lot throughout the years and I'd heard stories about the cemeteries around the area, but I didn't really think the cemetery came over this far," Tinker said.

The stone may be a remnant from the former cemetery of the Western Methodist Episcopal Church -- originally located on North Walnut Street near Second Street. The cemetery land which had been given to the Methodist Church by Thomas Worthington was bordered by what is now Chestnut, Cherry, Mill and Elm streets. The church congregation, following a revival that increased membership dramatically in the early 1840s, split to accommodate the growth into a Western Charge and Eastern Charge, with one offshoot becoming what is now Trinity United Methodist Church and the other creating what today is Walnut Street United Methodist Church.

The cemetery remained in place until the late 1890s when it was abandoned after upkeep was neglected and it was declared a nuisance by the city.

According to John Bowdle, Walnut Street United Methodist Church co-historian, the trustees for the church sold the cemetery lot for $1 for creation of a new city hospital on the condition that the hospital board would create a place in Grandview Cemetery where the bodies and markers could be moved. Some of the original markers that were left behind were taken by homeowners and turned face down to be used as paving stones for such things as patios or were used as portions of sidewalks.

There's plenty of precedent for that kind of use of old grave markers. A Google search reveals several news stories in Ohio – Canton and Medina most notably – and elsewhere across the country where markers were uncovered in back yards that had apparently been used at one time for patios or as stepping stones. Tinker said he may at some point around his yard a bit more to see if there are any more such stones buried just below the surface.

He also wonders if the infant girl may still be buried somewhere within the area bordered by the markers for the old cemetery.

"What I was really looking for was whether we could find her, and if not her, a descendant of hers to see if they wanted the stone," Tinker said. "If I couldn't find a descendant, I guess my only other thing would be to put it back where I found it, which would be right there. I don't know what else, respectfully, to do with it."

As someone who has worked for Children's Servics and the Chillicothe City Schools, Tinker is saddened by the unknown story of the girl named on the stone who had died so young and may be resting eternally in an unmarked grave.

"It's just kind of sad that has been in the ground for that length of time and nobody knows where this girl is, where she ended up," Tinker said.