How Old Can We Go?

One of the things I did yesterday was to go exploring in the Lakeview Cemetery in Ludington. I'm looking for something I'll use in Vacation from Dead Mule Swamp, but I was also curious about the oldest grave. How does one define that? Should it be the earliest burial date or the earliest birth date? I decided I wanted to know if there was anyone buried there who was born in the 1700s. It's possible, since the area's first white settler came in 1846.

I found several who were born in the 1820s. Here's one from 1819. G. Ewald.

J.L. Blading was born in 1820.

This one is very interesting because it's really a monument shaped like a book on a pedestal of a tree stump with ivy growing around it.

One real problem is that the oldest stones are often very hard to read. I'd need to take a lot more time, and do rubbings of possible dates.

This one was nearby, and I can read that somebody Miles died in 1881, but I can't quite read his age which would give me the birth year. It's certainly not 80 something. Mostly I'm showing you this because the picture on the stone is interesting with the two hands. This symbol can mean a number of different things, but since the two hands are on the same level, it possibly signifies some sort of farewell to earthly life or an embracing of eternal life. If the cuffs are different it may represent a husband and wife. In this case the carving is too worn to tell. I also couldn't find anything about one hand being open and the other clasped. But, it's interesting.

I did find something that I believe will work for the book (none of the above.) I also found a complete list of records for that cemetery on line. I'm working my way through it, but this is a very large cemetery. I'm almost through the Cs, and the oldest birth I've found so far is 1803, with several in the 18-oughts. So a 1700s one is possible.

I worked on the pantry, I did client work, I set up my Christmas gift from Steve (more on that another day),and I used the info I found yesterday to write, bringing the total words in Vacation from DMS is now at 20,027.