6 April 2007

Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,

We had an incredible day on Friday, April 6th at Spring Hill. My husband, daughter, and I were joined by Jeremy Nicholds, Evelyn McClure and Rae Swanson - as well as Glen and Javier of Regional Parks. Not only did we do the usual work day activities of felling dead trees (by regional parks), collecting and hauling debris, and clearing around headstones, but also we made significant discoveries!

Probing the ground yielded several foot stones and headstone bases. Upon further digging, we unearthed 3 nearly complete headstones, those of DPV Ogan and his son, Lewis, and one for Mary A Titus (one of 2 Mary A Titus' known to rest at Spring Hill). Additionally, one of the bases uncovered was for Ada S. Ogan, our headstone which, up until yesterday, rested on a eucalyptus tree in a neighboring field. Since we found the headstone's base, we wheel-barrowed it over to its "home" and Jeremy Nichols fit it proudly back into place.

From the early DAR list created from a walk through of the cemetery in 1934, we know of 4 Ogans at Spring Hill, DPV Ogan and three of his very young children. DPV Ogan was married to Francis (Fanny) Leah McReynolds; granddaughter of Jacob and Anna Christina Miller, who are also buried at Spring Hill. DPV Ogan was a schoolteacher in the area. From his headstone, he was born 26 August, 1827 (in Kentucky according to the 1860 Sonoma County census). DPV married Fanny in 1861, when she was just 17 years old. A daughter, Leni, was born in 1864 followed by daughter, Ada, in 1866, and son, Lewis, in 1870. By the end of 1870, all three of those children were buried at Spring Hill, and in June of 1872 they were joined by their father, DPV Ogan. I don't know if there were other children of this union, or what happened to Fanny McReynolds Ogan. She would have been just 29 at her husband's death. We now have 3 or the 4 Ogan headstones, we have yet to find Leni's headstone, although we do have its base and footstone.

Also of note, Regional Parks has installed a lovely sign at the entrance to the cemetery. They have scheduled the removal of the dangerous hanging tree branches in the cemetery, and are making progress on plans to remove the fire pit and to install boundary markers/fencing.

Our work parties this month have made it abundantly clear that the paths as they exist today are NOT in their original positions. Many of the paths are directly over graves with headstones on one side of a path and their footstones on the opposite side of the path. This makes it imperative that we use extreme caution in bringing any sort of equipment into the cemetery. Graves and headstones could be buried anywhere on the property at this point.

My deepest thanks to Evelyn, Jeremy and Rae who continue to provide boundless support - and the all important physical labor - for the cemetery, and to Regional Parks who have embraced stewardship of the cemetery in exemplary fashion.

24 August 2007

Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,

It would be hard to imagine a more perfect work day. The sun was shining, we had a very dedicated work group - our largest to date, we uncovered another buried stone and a base, cleaned numerous stones, loaded and hauled away another dump truck full of debris, AND we had the added glamour of a newspaper reporter and photographer. I want to give my heart-felt thanks to Evelyn, Jim & Candy, Rae, Cathy, Dick & Sally - who ALWAYS come out to help; and to Jerry and Caroline who have lent us their labor in the past, and came back again to join us. My husband, daughter, and I were joined, not only by the "regulars" mentioned above, but also by Arden Murphy, Carmen Finley, Tricia Hunstock, and our wonderful neighbors to the south (5 of the McDowell Clan joined in). Glen and Eric provided Regional Parks' usual superb support.

I had thought to tackle the north west corner of the cemetery around where we think the second William Lowery resides. We did begin there, but had to shift to the center of the cemetery. We disturbed a yellow jacket nest at the NW periphery of the cemetery, causing an angry cloud of them to buzz around my daughter. Jerry Lites bravely beat them off of her (thank you, Jerry!), but she still had 5 minor stings. Regional Parks will spray the yellow jacket nest next week, well before our next work day.

The yellow jackets may have been fortuitous, as, when we moved to the center of the cemetery, Arden Lites uncovered the head stone of Darius D Martin. Darius DeWitt Martin was born January 9, 1843 in Van Buren County, Iowa to Silas Mercer Martin and his wife, Nancy Miller Camron (Nancy was the daughter of Rev. John M. Camron). Alice Purvine Murphy's book on the Camron family details Darius' family's move across country as part of the 50 family, April 26, 1852 wagon train from Oakaloosa. Charles Purvine was elected captain and Silas Martin lieutenant of the group. Darius was 9 years old, his 4 sisters ranged in age from 5 to 12 years old, and his younger brother was 3. At one point on their journey west Indians stole the stock that were being driven in the wagon train. Near Salt Lake City several of the party died of cholera - Darius' own mother was taken ill. Once in California, Darius' father bought land in the Spanish grant of the Rancho Laguna de San Antonio. Darius died May 24, 1862 aged just 19 years old. Interestingly, Daruis' stone is just one of 2 stones in the cemetery which has what I take to be a maker's mark chisled into the stone. In the case of Darius' stone, it reads "J. Daniel 406 Pine S.F."

Next to Darius is the headstone of Martha Thompson Small who also died young, when just 23 years old. Martha's headstone lies flat in the middle of one of the "paths" through the cemetery. I had thought that perhaps Martha's stone had been moved and dropped onto the path, but with the discovery of Darius next to her, it seems that Martha's path (like many in the cemetery) is in the wrong place and that Martha is where she started out. Martha and Darius are two of what should be 4 possibly 5 related Camron/Small/Thompson Spring Hill burials...

While Arden, Jerry and Caroline were uncovering Darius, Cathy Stevenson headed a large head stone cleaning group that tackled many of the Robertson/Parmeter stones and Mary Ford. Pictures of the beautifully cleaned stones can be found on our picture album at: http://picasaweb.google.com/suezeni/SpringHillCemeterySebastopolSonomaCoCA

Dick Giberti continued his analysis of the Zilhart enclosure and in the process uncovered a large base. We are still looking for what belongs on top of it.

Cathy Stevenson and I planted 2 commemorative amaryllis bulbs, one on either side of the Spring Hill sign. If you have extra "naked lady" bulbs or other low maintenance bulbs or plants in your gardens that you think may do well at Spring Hill, let me know and I will check it out with Cathy (a professional landscaper)...

I think that the souls buried at Spring Hill will be very pleased with our efforts on Friday. Thank you all for the continued support. I hope to schedule our next work day on September 21st, with another on October 19, and, should the weather hold, a third on Novemeber 9th. Let me know how those dates look to you. I hope to see those that can join us out at the cemetery soon.

21 September 2007

Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,

I am short of time, but wanted to briefly update you all on our workday last Friday. We filled a large dump truck with debris, planted bulbs, experimented with new headstone cleaning techniques, and searched for metal. As always, the sun was shining, and the cemetery was a lovely spot to work. I even glimpsed a deer bounding through the trees while we worked. And no bees... (Thank you Glen for getting rid of them for us!).

Our wonderful regional parks workers finished weed whacking the ivy, and took out the last of the very invasive acacia trees. Much of the volunteers' efforts centered around clearing the debris caused by felling the acacias and the cutting up of larger downed tree sections. Rae, Evelyn, and my husband are experts at this, but were happily joined by a very strong, first-time SH volunteer Andy Martin. Andy still lives in the house his family has lived in since 1850, and the headstone we discovered at last month's work party is that of Andy's great uncle, Darius Martin.

I checked the Spring Hill map for accuracy, and surveyed broken stones; making a list of those that would be candidates for North Bay Monument Repairs. We loaded the first two from my list - those of Keziah Finley and DPV Ogan - into the trunk of my car, and dropped them off at North Bay Monument Company in Rohnert Park. Gary Galeazzi, owner of North Bay Monument Company, has very generously offered to repair any broken stones we could physically bring to him, as long as we have the time for him to fit in the repairs as his time permits.

Cathy Stevenson brought Rural Cemetery recommended cleaning supplies and did some limited experiments using their techniques. The results were mixed, and I think we will be evaluating further before coming up with a general plan for cleaning our stones. Jeremy Nichols brought us 5 pieces of an incomplete, non-dated headstone he found at Chanate to check against our stones in an attempt to date and find clues to his Chanate stone. It was nearly identical to our James, Jacob and Anna Christina McReynolds stones, dating from 1872, 1874 and 1878.

Kirston once again brought the metal detector. He found 4 large square nails around Daniel Crayne's monument, indicating there may once have been some sort of small enclosure around this stone. Also found was the handle of a very old dinner knife, several more square nails, a shot gun casing, a lead shot, and bits of a chain (jewelry). Gradually such findings build up a picture of how the cemetery has been used over time.

We planted 6 dozen amaryllis bulbs that I had "borrowed" from Chanate Cemetery. Hopefully they will bloom next September.

Due to all the volunteers' and regional park's efforts, we continue to make steady progress. My heartfelt thanks to those of you who joined me on Friday, providing your labor, skills, and invaluable companionship.

18 October 2007

Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,

he sun came out to welcome 11 of us, plus our two trusty Regional Parks workers (Glen and Dasan), to another productive work party at the cemetery yesterday. Three of our group were first-timers - thank you Carol, Gita, and Patty for adding your labor, humor, and skills to our effort. And thank you Patty for bringing us lilac trees and wildflower seeds; they will grace our cemetery for years to come.

As usual, a large part of our efforts were aimed at removing debris, cutting ivy off of trees, and chain-sawing downed limbs into removable sections. The acacia has now been almost entirely removed (although I am sure that it will keep popping up)! We completely filled yet another dump truck. Our explorations uncovered a couple of possibly "classic" bottles that Sally has kindly offered to research for us, a very large bolt and pieces of wood that we will puzzle over, as well as the carcass of a very large white bird. But no new headstones this month.

We spent considerable time with Martha Thompson Small. Cathy Stevenson had cleaned her intricate headstone last month, now making it possible to decipher Martha's inscription. About 5 of us worked on it with flashlights, cameras, brushes, etc, tilting our heads and the flashlight this way and that to get just that "perfect" angle whereby a letter could be teased off the surface of the marble. Letter by letter, this is what we came up with --

Her stone reads on the top half (it is split in 2 major pieces):

"Sacred to the memory
of Martha E
Dau. John B & Hannah Thompson
& wife of James M. Small
Departed this life May 16 AD 1859
23 yr 4 mo 12 days"

The bottom reads (newly gleaned yesterday):
"She died in the Lord

Thou art gone to the grave, we no longer behold thee
Nor tread the rough paths of the world by your side
But the wide arms of mercy are spread to enfold thee
(last line is still in progress, but we THINK:)
And thy friends hope to greet thee, since the Saviour hath died."

We worked valiantly at the cemetery on deciphering the words, but upon arriving home I was given considerable confidence in our work with help from the internet. Online I found that the inscription is a variation of a stanza of a poem written in 1827 by Bishop Reginald Heber on the death of his brother. You can find it in its entirety at:
http://fasola.org/indexes/1991/?p=158

Thank you to all of you who have spent hours next to me hauling tree limbs out of the cemetery, donated to the Spring Hill Restoration Fund administered by the WSCHS, and / or have helped research the Spring Hill burials - and to those descendants who have shared their family stories. We are giving voices to those pioneers for whom Spring Hill is home, and creating a peaceful spot on a hill top where breezes and sun filter through the trees.

9 November 2007

Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,

It is my pleasure to tell you we had another great day at the cemetery on Friday. Our luck held on weather. We had our usual dry day with sun filtering through the trees. The only mar to a perfect day was that several of you who had planned on joining us were sick and unable to make it. My heartfelt wishes for a quick recovery to those that were ill.

We did have 14 hearty souls join in our work group, along with Glen and Dasan from Regional Parks. Between us we represented descendants of Small (thank you for coming, Dorothy!), Parmeter, Titus, Lowery, McReynolds and Finley. The award for coming the furthest distance goes to Richard Parmeter, who came from Kansas City, Missouri. Richard found the only new stone of the day, remains of a footstone for James L. Parmeter. Richard, Arden, Caroline, Jeremy (the county "cemeterian", Rae and Evelyn from the WSCHS, Candy, Jim, Tricia, and Larry carried on our work of ridding the cemetery of debris - filling the largest dump truck with their efforts. Kirston once again searched for metal - this time finding a beautiful old horse shoe, several lead shots of varying sizes, a miniature toy truck, multitudes of square nails, an old mole trap, and other miscellany. Glen and Dasan took the dead tree in the Zilhart enclosure down to a stump, and cut many of the downed tree trunks around the cemetery into manageable pieces.

Our "new" focus of the day, was yet another headstone cleaning technique. We have tried many methods (thank you, Cathy!), and with mixed success. Jerry kindly brought his new, fully adjustable pressure washer, and with the use of water from our invaluable neighbors to the south, he painstakingly tried "low" pressure washing on a few of our stones. His device was very successful at thoroughly saturating the stones and removing the decades of grime without robbing the stones of any of their "character." All this with no use of chemicals. We started on McReynolds (my line, for the practice stones - starting at the base and back of stones to gauge pressure), and cleaned about 10 stones. On the Daniel Crayne, Samuel / Emma McReynolds stones we also used Orvis following the spray. Low pressure washing loosened the mold to where the Orvis was much more successful. But even without the ORVIS step, the water-cleaned stones look MUCH better than any of our previous efforts. I am thrilled with the results, and will hold Jerry to his word of coming back to finish them all.

The Western Sonoma County Historical Society, in addition to administering our Restoration Fund, has supplied cheerful, dependable and experienced labor on our work days.

8 February 2008

Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,

Friday the sun was shining, just as I had ordered, for our first work day of 2008. Ten enthusiastic "Friends" plus Jessie and Gustavo of Regional Parks joined in the effort. Since I last saw Spring Hill, Regional Parks kindly removed the wood piles and cleared debris from the strip next to the road. Massive amounts of eucalyptus debris, fir branches, and various leaves have rained down and are carpeting the cemetery, but otherwise Spring Hill has no other signs of winter damage. After a preliminary assessment, we cleared paths, removed debris from headstones in the Robertson/Parmeter area, tackled the persistent ivy in the south, filled yet another huge dump truck, hunted for metal, cleaned headstones, and made a discovery.

Patsy Marcussen, an energetic Robertson descendant, joined us for the first time and did an fabulous job removing the winter debris to restore the Robertson/Parmeter area to its usual state. She outlasted us all, and I think would still be there working away if it wasn't that everyone else and all the tools left. Please come again!

Using Larrick McDowell's water, Jerry painstakingly continued with the headstone cleaning. Most of the stones on the south side of the cemetery have now been cleaned. It will take several more sessions before the task is complete, but the finished stones are lovely. Larrick, MANY thanks for the use of your water.

Carolyn and Arden began clearing the paths of accumulated debris. Eventually we will need to decide exactly where the paths should be (at the moment some of them route directly over graves). But until we plan and reroute the paths, we need to maintain the existing pathways so that visitors may wander through and enjoy the peace of our setting. Is anyone interested in trying to devise a path plan for Spring Hill?

While walking over a part of the cemetery I had walked over many times before without discovering a thing, I felt the rain-softened earth stiffen in one spot. Closer examination showed that there appeared to be something man-made there. Jeremy Nichols (Sonoma county's official cemeterian) came to the spot and meticulously excavated what appears to be an infant's tomb. It is made of a soft material - we think a soft stone, although it could be an improperly cured cement. There are four shaped pieces fitted together, with outside dimensions of about 2 by 3 feet. It is hollow in the center, now filled with soft earth. We did not dig out the middle. In excavating along the outside of one of the sides, Jeremy found that it is quite deep - the stone extends down into the earth for more than 16 inches (which is how far we probed). One long side of the structure is a couple of inches taller that the rest, suggesting that perhaps there was a top to it. There are a couple of pieces of the same material (stone or bad cement) laying in different directions about 3 feet away.

All of this is near "McReynolds Row", but the possible infant tomb is not laid out in the same grid as the others. Perhaps there were earlier burials at the site, and when it came time for James McReynolds to bury Spring Hill's first recorded burial, Elizabeth Patience Gaulden McReynolds (James' young wife who became sick on the trail west, never recovered, and died March 17, 1853), James may have selected a site near to existing burials. An intriguing puzzle! Any ideas?

7 March 2008

Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,

As always, it was a spectacular day to be working at Spring Hill yesterday; with abundant sun, fragrant bay and eucalyptus scented air, and the blue vinca beginning to bloom around us. The lilac trees and "pink lady bulbs" that we planted last fall are sprouting. Glen and Salvadore from Regional Parks brought our usual tools, snacks, water and dump truck, and helped haul off some of the heavier debris. We are still in clean up mode from winter damage, but did get in a few more "finds," and started up a critical new project. With the generous gift of water from our neighbor to the south, Jerry continued the time consuming process of headstone cleaning. The cleaned stones are lovely. All who have seen them are delighted. There are many more still to do, and Jerry has promised to continue...

Arden and Caroline persevered with trail maintenance. In the process they uncovered the ASO foot stone. This belongs to Ada S. Ogan, whose headstone was recovered from a neighboring field last year, and was restored to its rightful place with the other Ogan stones. Her foot stone was on the complete opposite side of the cemetery from where it belongs. They also found the bottom part of a broken Titus foot stone. I hope we will eventually come across its top during the course of our clean up as well.

Kirston brought his metal detector again and found mostly square nails and shotgun cases. We are puzzled not to have found more nails (or wood) in the region of the old Titus enclosure. We have found concentrations of nails and blackened debris - possibly left over from a fire - but not in the Titus vicinity. It may be that past party goers dismantled the old enclosure to provide fuel for the bonfires they used to have in our cemetery.

Kirston also uncovered a very curious group of soft sandstone pieces (a picture is attached). It seems to be the same material that the "infant tomb" is made from. We aren't sure yet if it is a sandstone outcropping, or weathered pieces from a tombstone or grave.

Jeremy has suggested it would be very helpful if we could find someone that knows the local geology around Spring Hill, and might know where the soft sandstone comes from. We speculate that it must be somewhere near to the cemetery. If we could pinpoint the source of the material, it might help us date the "infant tomb" and give us an idea of what our new "find" is. If any of you have any expertise in this area, or have a connection with someone who might, please let us know. Also I would appreciate ideas that might help in evaluating our "infant tomb."

Jeremy also took pity on the tree that had been supporting Daniel Whitcomb's stone, and reset the stone into the ground. Daniel's stone reads, "California Recruit General Service Infantry." Jeremy says that that phrase is often used when a recruit dies in training (before they have had a chance to earn a rank). Given his death year, Daniel may have died in the Spanish flu epidemic while in training for WWI. The DAR found a second Whitcomb headstone during their inventory of Spring Hill in 1934. It was for a Martin Herrin Whitcomb who died in 1902. No other information was given, and no stone has yet been found for Martin.

Edith joined us for the first time yesterday, and was a big help in trying to keep the acacia under control. We did manage to cut down and remove most of it last year, but it is starting to sprout again. The new sprouts are easy to pluck out of the ground at the moment, and will save us quite a bit of effort down the road.

I am very excited to say that Cathy is beginning to properly map the cemetery. We have gotten along thus far with our hand drawn maps, but we increasingly need one that is more to scale. THANK YOU, Cathy!

My deepest thanks to all of you who joined in -- and to those that couldn't make it this time, I encourage you to come next time. It is a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours, and we could use the help!