AgentSun
08-05-2004, 06:11 PM
Source (http://www.yahoo.com/_ylh=X3oDMTB0a3N2dHJ2BF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEdGVzdAN2MQR0b XBsA3YxLW5z/s/205736)
Ky. Cemetery Probed for 1812 War Remains
Thu Aug 5, 3:11 AM ET
By CHARLES WOLFE, Associated Press Writer
FRANKFORT, Ky. - Archaeologists with radar equipment have probed a cemetery for something that has eluded generations of historians: the unmarked mass grave of 15 Kentuckians killed during the War of 1812.
"There have been historians who spent a lifetime trying to find out what happened to these remains," said John Trowbridge, director of the Kentucky Military History Museum, who was among those overseeing the project Wednesday.
Researchers are now banking that modern technology will yield an answer. A ground-penetrating radar unit, a device resembling a computerized baby buggy, was wheeled slowly around Frankfort Cemetery.
David Pollack, a Kentucky Heritage Council archaeologist, said the radar detects subterranean anomalies that could indicate hidden burial sites. Its data will be analyzed in a lab, possibly taking weeks.
The 15 Kentuckians were among casualties of the Battle of Raisin River near present-day Monroe, Mich. Historians say they surrendered to British troops but were handed over to American Indians and killed. Mutilated remains were strewn about but eventually buried in Detroit. They were finally returned to Kentucky, in a single box, about 1848.
The location of the final burial site has puzzled researchers. Newspapers of the period reported the remains being paraded through Cincinnati, then taken by boat across the Ohio River to Covington and placed in a vault in Linden Grove Cemetery.
There they stayed until 1850, when the Kentucky General Assembly decreed that they should be interred as heroes in Frankfort Cemetery, the final resting place for Daniel Boone and more than a dozen governors. After that — nothing.
"It's a great mystery," said Jim Richardson, Frankfort Cemetery superintendent.
Trowbridge speculated that one of the region's recurrent cholera scares may have prompted a quick burial with little or no ceremony and no permanent marking.
"Basically they were just buried up here and forgotten about," he said. "They could be out here anywhere."
Trowbridge also was looking for a casualty of the 1848 war with Mexico — Lt. Joseph W. Powell, killed at the Battle of Buena Vista. Trowbridge said Powell's body is known to have been among those brought back from Mexico for burial, but he has no marked grave.
Trowbridge, the driving force behind the project, said he was spurred on both as a historian by a desire for exactness and as a military veteran by a feeling that soldiers' past should be honored in death.
"I'd want someone to properly mark my grave," he said.
this caught my eye specifically because of "1812" but i read the article and found it interesting that even after over 150 years, we are still striving to give these men their due. i mean, the war of 1812 is not so well known...it's easy to say that we're looking for civil war deaths, but 1812! wow, it's about time. i hope some kids in the area will get a good educational experience out of the local news. someone should benefit from the past and i'm afraid today's educational system is lacking in interest about the past. i like studying history. finding out about people who lived in the past is not just a historical thing, it is an anthropological thing, and i wanted to major in anthropology. i'm very interested in people and their mindset and how their culture was. and history is a very close relative to anthropology.
Ky. Cemetery Probed for 1812 War Remains
Thu Aug 5, 3:11 AM ET
By CHARLES WOLFE, Associated Press Writer
FRANKFORT, Ky. - Archaeologists with radar equipment have probed a cemetery for something that has eluded generations of historians: the unmarked mass grave of 15 Kentuckians killed during the War of 1812.
"There have been historians who spent a lifetime trying to find out what happened to these remains," said John Trowbridge, director of the Kentucky Military History Museum, who was among those overseeing the project Wednesday.
Researchers are now banking that modern technology will yield an answer. A ground-penetrating radar unit, a device resembling a computerized baby buggy, was wheeled slowly around Frankfort Cemetery.
David Pollack, a Kentucky Heritage Council archaeologist, said the radar detects subterranean anomalies that could indicate hidden burial sites. Its data will be analyzed in a lab, possibly taking weeks.
The 15 Kentuckians were among casualties of the Battle of Raisin River near present-day Monroe, Mich. Historians say they surrendered to British troops but were handed over to American Indians and killed. Mutilated remains were strewn about but eventually buried in Detroit. They were finally returned to Kentucky, in a single box, about 1848.
The location of the final burial site has puzzled researchers. Newspapers of the period reported the remains being paraded through Cincinnati, then taken by boat across the Ohio River to Covington and placed in a vault in Linden Grove Cemetery.
There they stayed until 1850, when the Kentucky General Assembly decreed that they should be interred as heroes in Frankfort Cemetery, the final resting place for Daniel Boone and more than a dozen governors. After that — nothing.
"It's a great mystery," said Jim Richardson, Frankfort Cemetery superintendent.
Trowbridge speculated that one of the region's recurrent cholera scares may have prompted a quick burial with little or no ceremony and no permanent marking.
"Basically they were just buried up here and forgotten about," he said. "They could be out here anywhere."
Trowbridge also was looking for a casualty of the 1848 war with Mexico — Lt. Joseph W. Powell, killed at the Battle of Buena Vista. Trowbridge said Powell's body is known to have been among those brought back from Mexico for burial, but he has no marked grave.
Trowbridge, the driving force behind the project, said he was spurred on both as a historian by a desire for exactness and as a military veteran by a feeling that soldiers' past should be honored in death.
"I'd want someone to properly mark my grave," he said.
this caught my eye specifically because of "1812" but i read the article and found it interesting that even after over 150 years, we are still striving to give these men their due. i mean, the war of 1812 is not so well known...it's easy to say that we're looking for civil war deaths, but 1812! wow, it's about time. i hope some kids in the area will get a good educational experience out of the local news. someone should benefit from the past and i'm afraid today's educational system is lacking in interest about the past. i like studying history. finding out about people who lived in the past is not just a historical thing, it is an anthropological thing, and i wanted to major in anthropology. i'm very interested in people and their mindset and how their culture was. and history is a very close relative to anthropology.