u/TN-Native95 — reddlx

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Cemeteries and Private Property

I’ve been making plans for the coming months to visit some cemeteries in my area that will require me to go onto private property (mostly farmland) to access. Usually I stop at ones that can be accessed but the ones I’m looking at now are going to require me to get through a few locked gates. Fortunately in my state I can use property viewer to look up who the owners are. My main question is what etiquette do you all use when reaching out to land owners? Do you look up the owners and message them on social media or do you just drive up and knock on the door? The other thing is not having an exact location for some of the cemeteries. How do you go about asking people if they know where the cemetery is?

reddit.com

u/TN-Native95 — 1 day ago

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“Offerings” left at the grave of an alleged witch

In Coffee County, TN next to a Baptist Church lies the grave of Sadie Baker, who legend tells was a witch. She was believed to have lived sometime around the Civil War and the different stories surrounding her, as well as clues to her true identity, can be found all over the internet. People still visit her grave and leave different offerings to her, mainly coins and plastic flowers. You never know what you’ll see there. On my previous visit to the cemetery to fulfill some photo request for Find A Grave, someone had even left her a couple of gift cards to Chick Fil A. She gets regular visitors and the church just asks you be respectful of the cemetery and her grave.

Concord Cemetery, near Tullahoma, TN

u/TN-Native95 — 5 days ago

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I occasionally fulfill photo requests at a VA National Cemetery near me. It dates back to the Civil War-era, so there are a large number of unknown burials. When it comes to the requests for soldiers buried there as “Unknowns,” I typically take one of two approaches.

Reporting a problem and in the comments noting that they are buried as an unknown soldier.
Taking a picture of a few markers in the sections designated for unknown soldiers and note in the picture caption that the soldier the memorial is for is believed to be buried in the cemetery as an unknown soldier.

Is one of these approaches better than the other?

reddit.com

u/TN-Native95 — 10 days ago

▲ 327

In the back of a church cemetery in rural Tennessee is a grave marked Thomas Allen, A Confederate Soldier. The plot he is buried in (which does not appear to be any relatives of his) is surrounded by a concrete border. On the edge closest to him, what is supposed to be his rifle is embedded. There are two different stories told about the origin:

Thomas Allen came by during the Civil War, was very sick and died.
The old church building (since replaced) was used as a school as well. During the war, a group of boys were tasked with getting there early to light the wood stoves and heat the building up before everyone else arrived for the day. One morning, they went inside and found a soldier,believed to have broken in the night before, lying dead.

Not much is left other than the barrel, but it is still there all these years later.

u/TN-Native95 — 11 days ago