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Tioga County
PA History and Genealogy
Rutland Township Cemeteries
Tioga County, Pennsylvania
Old Roseveille Cemetery
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Presented by The History Center on Main Street,
Mansfield PA |
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Photo by Joyce M. Tice
March 2007
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When Worlds Collide: Kelsey Jones searches for old tombstone
bases while Roseville youngsters search for Easter Eggs. Treasure is treasure,
and it is all in the eyes of the beholder. They have their idea of treasure,
and we have ours.
Kelsey Jones was kind enough to offer me a tour of the Old Roseville Burial
Ground today. This is a high wooded mound just beside the athletic field
in the park at Roseville. At some time the inscribed tombstones of our
earliest Roseville/Rutland settlers who were in this burial ground were
relocated to Watson Cemetery [Now called Roseville Community Cemetery].
We do not know when the relocation occurred or if the relocation included
just tombstones or physical remains as well. We are not aware of records
that would document this process.
Little did we know that our day to hunt for tombstone bases would coincide
with the local Easter Egg Hunt. When we arrived we were confronted
with many dozens of cars parked where we wanted to park and a field full
of children and adults. When we saw the athletic field full of brightly
colored Easter eggs, we figured out what was going on. Undaunted, we simply
pretended we were invisible, and skirting the egg populated field we arrived
at the [former] burial ground behind only to observe more brightly colored
Easter eggs hidden under the leaves and branches.
The remains of the burial ground includes fieldstones mounted upright
to mark both the head and foot of graves as well as slotted bases where
inscribed tombstones that had stood in them were removed to Watson Cemetery.
There is just no way that we know to identify who is or was buried here.
These are very early burials and we just do not have resources to identify
them.
Before we had finished, the Easter Egg hunters has descended upon us
in their frenzy to find the eggs with prizes in them. Adaptable as I am,
I switched from photographing the fieldstone burial markers to photographing
the Easter Egg Hunt of 2007. Today's event is tomorrow's history. Onward.
Following are the photos of these dual events. Time in its infinite essence
builds up in layers on our finite space.
When we left and ran into people I know who were monitoring the Great
Easter Egg Hunt of 2007, we simply explained that we were State Easter
Egg Inspectors, and they were kind enough to pretend to believe us. At
least they did not argue the point. . [That was Kelsey's idea. I am not
that clever.]
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Joyce's Search Tip - December 2007 -
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Do You Know that you can search just the
600
pages of Tioga County Cemetery Records on the site by using the Cemeteries
-Tioga button in the Partitioned search engine at the bottom of the
Current
What's New Page? If you use that partition follow these steps to
search just one cemetery.
1. Choose Cemeteries - Tioga.
2. Enter part of the cemetery name [ie Newbury or Furman] AND a surname.
3. Choose the Find ALL Words option. Then it will find just the pages
with that surname in the one cemetery you indicated. |
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| Tombstone base remains where tombstone removed |
Some fieldstone markers remain |
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| The FirstCharge |
More ascend the hill |
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| The Field gets more crowded |
A Lone Hunter - it's every one for himself |
Of all the many interesting things I have encountered
in cemeteries, this is indeed the very first time I ever encountered an
Easter Egg Hunt.
<< Old Roseville Burial Ground >>
Hello Joyce; My Mother & Father were living in Roseville at
the time this cemetery was excavated. All the remains that could be found
were removed. Mom's not certain of the exact date but thinks it was about
1951. With the fear of unknown disease, security was extremely tight. The
entire area, a good ways back from the cemetery, was fenced off & guards
posted 24 hours a day.
Mom feels a project such as this one, surely the County Seat &/or
Funeral Homes involved will have records.
Hope all is well with you & your family
Frank Thrasher
Not sure what was going on in the time and incident Frank
reports,. We are trying to track it down. However, the following more accurately
represents the reinterrment and is in keeping with what we already had
reported.
Joyce, There is a knoll that used to be a cemetery
behind the school house. Or maybe the school is gone now, I don't know
about that. We used to have a ball diamond behind the school and that knoll
was beyond the diamond. The graves on that knoll were moved a long
time ago. I went to school there in 1929 to 1932 and the graves were not
there then. We used to play cowboys and indians on the knoll. We hid in
the depressions where the graves had been removed and sneaked around through
the trees.
I think it was 1931 that Dad was given the job at the cemetery
and one of the things he did was rearrange some of the old stones that
had come from the knoll. Reinterment was in a small area behind the Watson
lot. (The watson lot has a ring of trees around it.) The old stones
were tipped over and some of them broken. Dad repaired the stones and reset
them in a semi-circle facing the drive. There was no way to tell where
the actual graves were and there was noone living who remembered any of
the people so it didn't really matter where the stones were placed.
I don't remember if he told me when the graves were moved,
if he did I have forgotten. I believe that graves were moved from several
other small cemeteries around the area.
My memory is that all the graves were gone when we played
there but I could be mistaken, there could have been some still there.
It probably wouldn't have bothered us if the graves were there but I don't
remember seeing any stones.
Creig Crippen
I don't recall any grave stones on that knoll back of the
school house where we played cops and robbers, cowboys and indians etc.
Those stones that Dad reset, the Rose family including the old boy
who started it all, where lined up close together scross the ridge.He aligned
them the other way along the ridge. They were all there when Dad started
as caretaker, but were in bad shape. Some were broken, some tipped over,
etc. I remember working with him along about that time and as a boy I wondered
if he would get in trouble for setting the stones up in a different position
than where the graves were.
The WPA had a few men working in the cemetery at that time and they
worked with Dad. That area where those stones were was pretty well grown
up with brush and weeds. Dad and those other men worked for some
time clearing the brush and finding the stones.
Considering the condition of the former graves on the knoll back of
the school house when we were kids and the way it was covered with brush
and trees, the bodies must have been removed many years before we moved
there.
Osmer Crippen
Published on Tri-Counties 31 MAR 2007
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Tioga County PA History and Genealogy
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The History Center Genealogy database includes over 100,000 individuals with
ties to Mansfield, Richmond, Sullivan, Rutland, Covington and surrounding areas.
Our objective is to collect photos and develop life histories of the families
and persons who have been part of our community. You can participate by sharing
your research with this community genealogy.
tioga.genealogy@gmail.com |
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