{"id":10,"date":"2011-03-23T23:10:14","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T23:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mosesdoan.wordpress.com\/?p=10"},"modified":"2011-03-23T23:10:14","modified_gmt":"2011-03-23T23:10:14","slug":"a-stranger-found-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/?p=10","title":{"rendered":"A Stranger Found Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_16\" style=\"width: 663px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mosesdoan.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/strangers-row1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16\" title=\"Strangers Row\" src=\"http:\/\/mosesdoan.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/strangers-row1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"653\" height=\"390\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Strangers Row, an open patch of lawn<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">When I read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.buckscountyhistory.org\/2011\/03\/somebody-parry.html\">Rayna\u2019s post<\/a> about an unknown grave at Solebury Friends Meeting, the text of its headstone obscured by tree roots, I immediately knew the grave she was talking about. I grew up in that graveyard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">We were the caretakers, and when my mother worked my brother and I went with her. We spent hours upon hours in the cemetery, finding ways to keep ourselves occupied. One of our favorite games was to jump from headstone to headstone, moving up and down the rows while our mother mowed. I\u2019ve read every name on every headstone, connecting the roads and hills of Solebury to the old family plots (Ely, Paxon, Armitage, Kitchen, Pidcock, Magill). As a teenager I even dug some graves myself. I know the place pretty well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">But this enigmatic tree-eaten grave gave me pause. Weren\u2019t there other unknown graves? A fragment of a memory came back to me. Something about a man found dead in a tree. A stranger whose body was discovered and buried in the graveyard. I thought I\u2019d read it somewhere, so I looked through some books (MacReynolds\u2019 <em>Place Names in Bucks County<\/em>, Davis\u2019 <em>History of Bucks County<\/em>) but found nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">So I asked my father, who was the caretaker for about ten years starting in the mid-70s until my parents divorced. Did he remember anything about unknown bodies buried in the graveyard? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">He came up with the same story about a stranger found dead in a tree (We can rule out the power of suggestion. I hadn\u2019t mentioned it). The details were foggy, but these fractured shards emerged:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">He thinks the \ttree stood on the left near the wall as you enter the graveyard from \tthe meetinghouse, but it was no longer standing when he became \tcaretaker.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">If it wasn\u2019t \ta tree in the graveyard, it was definitely a tree somewhere on the \tmeetinghouse grounds.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">The body was in \tthe branches of the tree, not hanged.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">He thinks \tRachel Franck, a member of Meeting that lived just south of the \tgraveyard, used to mention the man in the tree occasionally.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">He was buried \tin Strangers Row.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">This last detail caught me by surprise. I spent the first seventeen years of my life in that graveyard, but I\u2019d never heard of Strangers Row.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">They were not all strangers, he explained. That\u2019s where they buried non-Quakers, across the lane from the oldest section of the graveyard (Perhaps called \u201cstrangers\u201d to distinguish them from Friends?). Most of them were known members of the community, they just weren&#8217;t members of Meeting. However, he said that there were more graves whose occupants were in fact unknown.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">At this point I reached the limit of my tolerance for half-remembered ambiguities, and I decided to find some documentary evidence. I tracked down a list of graves on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.interment.net\/data\/us\/pa\/bucks\/solebury\/index.htm\">Interment.net<\/a> (provided, I should mention, by my grandfather who has been in charge of the graveyard for decades) and found some promising leads. Of the 21 \u201cUnknowns\u201d two stuck out:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">d. \t10\/28\/1880, stranger found dead, Sect. B-6-4<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">d. \t7\/21\/1913, man found in woods, Sect. B-9-13<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">Could one of these be the man found dead in a tree? I headed to the graveyard to investigate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\"><strong>Strangers Row<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">I came looking for a row of headstones, but what I found challenged a basic principle of my mental geography of the graveyard. Strangers Row was empty. My whole live I assumed that every grave had a headstone, but this open patch of lawn was full of graves, unmarked and unknown.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">Headstones are expensive, and even today new graves might be marked with temporary tags for years before a proper stone is installed (In this section I actually found a weathered plastic grave tag for Oscar Carter, deceased 1904). Whether they lacked the family ties or money, these strangers\u2019 graves were left without a permanent mark.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">Analyzing the list of the dead, I made a startling discovery. It seemed like a disproportionate number of the dead in Strangers Row were children. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">I started counting. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">In the first three rows, 74 of the graves are specifically listed as children, while only 67 are not. I doubt this can be explained by higher child mortality rates alone. A more likely explanation is that these children belonged to families who were not permanent residents of the community. Sometime after the children died, the families moved on and were buried elsewhere. Furthermore, many of the adults buried had unique surnames, indicating that they were not related by birth or marriage to the members of Solebury Friends Meeting. To further complicate things, one plot (d. 6\/7\/1886, baby from home in Philadelphia) suggests that perhaps the meeting took some bodies in for charity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\"><strong>Four Unknowns<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">I now knew that to find my buried strangers I\u2019d have to identify unmarked graves. I would have to triangulate their location by referencing graves with legible names. I loaded the Interment.net grave listing on my Android phone and went about identifying headstones close to the unmarked graves, narrowing in on my target by the row and plot number. In a few minutes, I found the graves of my two best leads:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_14\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mosesdoan.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/stranger-found-dead-1880.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14 \" title=\"Stranger Found Dead 1880\" src=\"http:\/\/mosesdoan.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/stranger-found-dead-1880.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"390\" height=\"464\" srcset=\"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/stranger-found-dead-1880.jpg 390w, https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/stranger-found-dead-1880-252x300.jpg 252w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 390px) 100vw, 390px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-14\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stranger Found Dead 1880<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_15\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mosesdoan.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/man-found-dead-in-woods-1913.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15 \" title=\"Man Found Dead in Woods 1913\" src=\"http:\/\/mosesdoan.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/man-found-dead-in-woods-1913.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"490\" height=\"293\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-15\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Man Found Dead in Woods 1913<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">Does one of these graves belong to the man found dead in a tree? Was the story my father and I remembered a corrupted retelling of a man simply found in the woods in 1913? Or was he one of the other unknowns, listed only as a question mark on the record of graves? My father and grandfather had no further information. Maybe some other old timer at Meeting knows the answer. For now, my leads have gone cold.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">While I was at it, I also looked up two more intriguing unknowns, listed as \u201cIrish Woman\u201d and \u201cBoy Drowned in Canal\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_17\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mosesdoan.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/irish-woman-and-boy-drowned-in-canal.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17\" title=\"Irish Woman and Boy Drowned in Canal\" src=\"http:\/\/mosesdoan.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/irish-woman-and-boy-drowned-in-canal.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"390\" height=\"653\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-17\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Irish Woman and Boy Drowned in Canal<\/p><\/div>\n<p>How did these two come to rest at Solebury Friends Meeting? No dates are provided. The first stone between them belongs to William Fennell, also undated. The other two Fennells were buried in 1871 and 1881, so it\u2019s reasonable to guess that William died around the late 1800\u2019s. The rest of the plots surrounding them are also undated, and almost all belong to children. Of these children, four have parents buried here, and those parents&#8217; dates of death range from 1867 to 1906. This places the children&#8217;s deaths in the mid- to late 1800&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>What events brought them here? Why were they identified only by ethnicity and manner of demise? For now these reticent strangers will keep their secrets.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll leave you with one of my favorite headstones, belonging to their fellow cemetery residents, 24-year-old Austin H. Cowdrick (d.12\/6\/1881):<span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mosesdoan.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/austin-h-cowdrick.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-18\" title=\"Austin H. Cowdrick\" src=\"http:\/\/mosesdoan.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/austin-h-cowdrick.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"633\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">\u201c<span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\"><em>Unceasingly floweth the cold cold tide, of Death\u2019s dark and lonly [sic] river. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><span style=\"font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\"><em>And he whom the Boatman carrieth o\u2019er Returneth oh never never.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I read Rayna\u2019s post about an unknown grave at Solebury Friends Meeting, the text of its headstone obscured by tree roots, I immediately knew the grave she was talking about. I grew up in that graveyard. We were the caretakers, and when my mother worked my brother and I went with her. We spent hours upon hours in the &hellip; <a class=\"meta-nav\" href=\"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/?p=10\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,34],"tags":[65,68],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graves","category-solebury","tag-quakers","tag-strangers-row"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p44e7y-a","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burnbridle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}