18 September 2009

Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,

We had a sturdy crew of 10 for our workday on Friday. It was probably our warmest workday yet, but with Spring Hill's shade and cool breezes, we had pleasant conditions for our very productive day. Larry Robertson and his grandson, Josh, from Mokelumne Hill, were welcome additions to our base resetting crew, as a couple of our regulars on this task were unable to make it this month. 5 additional bases (Geo Titus, Samuel/Emma McReynolds, Benjamin Towner, James McReynolds) were reset. We have now reset well over half of the cemetery's headstone bases, and are ready for more input from Gary Galeazzi of North Bay Monument on how to proceed with securing the stones into the reset bases (Jeremy talked with Gary, and Gary thinks he will be able to help us with that in October). We continued with discoveries, and filled the small dump truck with gathered debris. Many thanks to Regional Parks for supporting us with tools, dump truck and cool drinks; to our ever supportive neighbors to the south (the McDowells) for the parking spaces and use of water - and to the volunteers who lent their labor.

We have made several discoveries over the past few months while resetting Spring Hills’ bases and stones, ranging from "the message in a bottle" to previously buried footstones and monument fragments. This months’ resetting surprises came while digging out, leveling, and resetting George W Titus’ military headstone. In the process of removing the stone, we came across a buried unmarked wooden marker next to his stone (first picture attached). An even more intriguing aspect of George’s site, once the monument was removed, was the stone itself. Both the wooden marker and the peculiarities of the stone tie in with a 5 April 1910 Santa Rosa Republican article Ray Owen sent me recently titled, “Monuments for Old War Veterans Have Arrived.”

Ray’s accompanying letter to me articulately supplies background:

From a review of the newspaper between December 1908 and August 1910, I noticed several articles that reported the receipt of government-issue headstones for veterans buried in Sonoma County. The concerted effort was lead by Dr. Franklin Elijah Brower, a past commander of Ellsworth Post of the G.A.R. of Santa Rosa. The G.A.R. was the Grand Army of the Republic, a national organization of Union veterans of the Civil War. Some wags asserted that “G.A.R.” really stood for “Generally All Republicans” – a largely accurate observation.

In April 1910, a list of headstones recently received was published and included that of “Geo. W. Titus, private Co. I, 4th Mich. Cav., died March 24, 1909, Spring Hill Cemetery, civil war veteran.” Thus, the military headstone for George W. Titus, buried in Spring Hill Cemetery, was secured and placed under the direction of Ellsworth Post, G.A.R, Santa Rosa, CA.

An excerpt from the 5 April 1910 article: "Dr. F. E. Brower of this city, the army vereran has received from the Quartermaster's Department, twenty-one tombstones to be erected over the graves of the war heroes." The article goes on to list details of the arriving stones. Besides the stone destined for Spring Hill, other cemeteries receiving the stones were Sebastopol cemetery, Fulkerson cemetery, IOOF cemetery, Rural cemetery, Calvary cemetery, Guerneville cemetery, and Shiloh cemetery. Most were stones for civil war vets, but there were also several from the Spanish-American war, and one Mexican war veteran.

The plain wooden marker we found obviously marked the spot of George’s grave until his military headstone arrived. The surprise of the stone was that it had two inscriptions – the correct inscription on the visible end of the stone, and nearly the same inscription on the buried other side and end of the stone with “INF” instead of the correct “CAV.” (3rd picture attached). Ray didn’t mention where the government-issue headstones were carved (stones sent with inscriptions already on them, or stones sent and then carved locally), but apparently, the carving on George’s was incorrect, the error caught, and the solution decided on was to reuse the other end of the stone. As my husband pointed out to me, white-out unfortunately doesn’t work on stone.

This George W. Titus is one of two George W. Titus’ buried at Spring Hill – the two Georges were first cousins. There are 13 interrelated Titus/Ward/Marsh family burials at Spring Hill, ranging in burial dates from 1875 with the burial of William H Ward to the most recent 1942 burial of Embert Milo Titus. The last attachment is a chart showing the various Titus/Ward/Marsh connections.

On the heels of his successful uncovering of Mary Catherine Small's foot stone last month, Dick continued his discovery streak by finding a part of a stone near a large un-topped base (the 4th attachment). There was no visible writing on the stone. We will try matching it with the other incomplete fragments we have found in an attempt to further identify it. It may have been part of a monument grouping such as the Ward grouping visible in the 4th attachment above the fragment. The Ward grouping consists of a large central monument carved with details of four Ward burials recorded on it, and smaller individual head and foot stones surrounding it. Unfortunately, if this was a grouping such as the Ward grouping, the large central monument is no longer in the cemetery. But we may be able to find additional peripheral stones to aide in identification.

I have a correction to last month's recap. In it I mentioned we had found another piece of James L Parmeter's headstone and that his mother, Lavinia Robertson Parmeter, was to the south of James and his father, Jefferson D Parmeter was to the south of Lavinia. The correction is that Jefferson D Parmeter was James L Parmeter's brother (not father). James L and Jefferson's father was John Spencer Parmeter.

Following the workday, about a dozen of the "Friends" met with Sonoma County and Regional Parks representatives to continue last month's meeting about the future of the cemetery. Mary Burns, Jim McCray, and Judy Erickson had spent considerable time in the intervening month researching cemetery law and types of cemeteries to see what the legal requirements are and what options the county has in the Spring Hill case, meeting with an attorney specializing in cemetery law, researching the cemeteries mentioned at the previous meeting to see if they were similar to Spring Hill, and looking into how the current burials in Sonoma County's only other active cemetery are handled by the Coroner's office. County representatives reported on their findings. For clarity, definition of responsibility, and ease of budgeting, it seems that the county is considering the use of a non-profit that could contract with the county and oversee many of the Spring Hill activities. The WSCHS, which from the very beginning has been, and continues to be an integral part of the "Friends", are unable to formally contract with the county. But the Sonoma County Historical Society, also an integral part of our efforts from the very beginning, has stepped forward to consider the issue. Mary Burns is continuing with her review of Spring Hill's options, and, when her review is complete, will be making a presentation to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors with her recommendations. There will be a public Supervisor's meeting at that time (it has not yet been scheduled), and interested parties are encouraged to attend.

Again, many thanks to all of you for joining in the effort to restore our historic cemetery - whether you have given your labor at the cemetery, donated to the restoration fund or donated services, emailed or sent details of your family's involvement with the cemetery, spent time researching burials, donated local plants to the cemetery, or have just sent good wishes, it is all appreciated. We have just two workdays remaining for 2009 -- October 16th and Novemeber 20th, weather permitting. Please mark your calendars, and come out and join us if you can!!