The Cemetery

There are two cemeteries in Hartford. One is newer where people are still buried today and the other is a very old cemetery, almost ancient. I can't tell you how many times I have driven by the "old" cemetery and never gave it a second thought...until a few weeks ago. In our little home town newspaper I recently read an article about a man from down south somewhere that was into his family tree history. He had tracked his (multiple great) Grandfather's grave to the old cemetery in Hartford. And what made it so cool was that his Grandfather was a veteran of the revolutionary war. How cool is that??!! This man drove all the way to Hartford Michigan to find the grave. I wish I would have kept the article. Anyway, that's what got me to thinking about the cemetery and the graves in there. Yesterday I grabbed my camera and drove up there. It was worth the effort. It was so awesome to walk around and look at the headstones. So many were like this one. It was barely 18 inches tall and the inscription was long worn away. Who is this mysterious person from so long ago? I really wanted to find the "Revolutionary War" veteran but I just wasn't sure who he was. I did find some with dates that I thought might be him. This grave had a marker that said this person was a veteran from the war of 1812. His last name was Thomas and I could read "aged ?? years". I noticed that a lot of these graves stated the persons age when they died. I don't think they do that anymore.
I couldn't read this one either. But the side markers read "Mother" & "Father".

Here lies Martha, wife of Thomas Conklin, died on Dec. 6, 1813, at the age of 27. That means she was born in 1786. That's 100 years BEFORE the civil war!!

Here "sleeps" Alvin. I couldn't read anymore of it. Look at the hand pointing to heaven. I was intrigued by that.

This must be a family. See the broken stone propped up against the monument? It was sad to see so many broken. This one was in good shape compared to some.

What did I learn by walking around this cemetery? Here this awesome bit of history has been right under my nose for all these years and I have never given it a thought. I learned that sometimes it's a good thing to do something totally out of the ordinary and go places and do things that you never thought of doing before. This was an awesome experience and I could have gone my whole life and never stopped there and looked around. What else am I missing in this world just because I've never given it a second thought?