Cemeteries

ANDREW RICHEY--
May you rest in peace

Mr. Richey's tombstone shows he died in 1817 "in the 82 year of his age".  That means he was born in 1735, 54 years before George Washington became our nation's first president.

Ponder that for a minute.

We discovered Mr. Richey's tombstone in a Revolutionary War cemetery in southeastern Mifflin Township while on a geocaching outing.  It was quite close to the tombstone from that war we featured on July 4th.

BIG OAK TREE--

It took three reaches of Sue's and my span, plus a a few inches for us to conclude the circumfrence of this tree was about 18 feet.  It is located in a small cemetery in Cass Township.  It was hard to speculate the year of this tree's "birth" but there is little doubt Native American's were roaming nearby trails when it's sprout first peaked above ground level.

 POTTER'S FIELD--

...and a different kind of sadness.  That is a deteriorating silk flower in the foreground depression, the gravesite of some poor soul buried in a field serving as the cemetery for "Dayspring", the perky name of the old Richland County Home; visible as the silver roofs against the background woods.  The field at least is maintained by mowing the grass.  Otherwise, visible and identifiable markers are few and far between in this burial ground of mostly discarded citizens.

We found and did these three photos plus the tombstone of the Revolutionary War soldier featured earlier, while geocaching recently in Richland County.  All caches are placed with high regard and respect for the decedents.  

In fact, I make it a personal practice to maintain the little flags often found on veteran's graves.

The true benefit of geocaching is quietly reflecting on such things as those above; things that likely would otherwise go completely unnoticed as we travel elsewhere in our usually busy lives.