Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,
Yesterday was another lovely workday at Spring Hill. Nine of us gathered under sunny skies and mild temperatures. Sebastopol had recently been pummeled by rains, but the cemetery was in good shape, just a tad soggy.
Tasks for the day included raking paths and pulling the burgeoning weeds.
The dump truck was rapidly filled, and we turned our attentions to puzzling over our stone coffin. Jeremy Nichols recently came across an article online at: http://moneyversed.com/deverill-villa-found-under-barn/ with a picture of what looked like Spring Hill's stone coffin. The picture was taken in England, and archaeologists labeled it a "Roman Child's Coffin." Picture of the Roman Coffin:
This rekindled interest in our own "stone coffin," pictured below.
We came across ours during the February 2008 clean up day. Today it is mostly below ground, but would have been above ground before cemetery debris piled up around and on it. Gathering up pieces of its "top" from nearby in the cemetery, Jeremy and Sally worked at reforming the pieces of the top. This "coffin" remains a mystery to us. We don't know if it predates the other Spring Hill burials, or was hand fashioned in the early days of the cemetery for a child's burial. The McReynolds family burials are nearby, so it may be an early McReynolds burial. There are no other burials similar to this at Spring Hill, and Jeremy (an expert on Sonoma County cemeteries) knows of no others in the county.
I have been asked about Spring Hill's website. Larry Wendt maintains a wonderful website for us at
http://www.wendtroot.com/cockrill/d0011/d0011notes/SpringHillCemetery.html
If you haven't looked at it before, I highly recommend it. It has all the history of the cemetery along with links to all the cemetery's burials. We have included pictures when we have them of Spring Hill's inhabitants. There are also links to all the past workday recaps.
Our next workday will be June 8th. Please come and join us if you can.
Best Regards,
Sue
