Cemetery plotting
According to residents of Oakland Township, Sarah Millinger's ghost still roams the woods around Beulah Road.
Her headstone, which stands in a patch of woods near the road, says she died in 1917. She was 33 years, five months and 40 days old.
"She died the night of her wedding," related Rose Benninger, 65, who lives on a farm nearby.
Benninger's retelling of the neighborhood legend says grave robbers cut off Sarah's finger in an attempt to steal her wedding ring.
Her ghost is seeking its finger still.
Across the county in Moraine State Park, a tombstone conjures another tale. Nancy Ann McCandless, 22, lies in a clearing deep in the woods.
Shot on Oct. 3, 1868, by Zachary Hockenberry, her death resulted from unrequited love.
"She was in love with someone else. She was supposed to get married," said Laurie Rice of Oakland Township, whose family tree links her to both parties.
"He was trying to shoot off her nose so it would make her unattractive to someone else, but he missed — and he killed her."
Hockenberry, buried in Prospect, was later hanged for the crime.
Rice discovered the grave at Moraine during an outing several years ago with members of the Butler County Genealogical Society.
Hoping to locate a different relative's grave that day, she discovered instead the resting place of the character made popular through family folklore.But changing times had rendered the marker difficult to access."We went in vehicles so far. We got stuck in mud. We had to hike in," Rice said, explaining park manager Obie Derr had to clear weeds and jaggers with a machete."We had to use a GPS (global positioning system)," she added. "It was really dense."Also buried in the clearing are Hannah McCandless, 76, who died in 1888; and Kezia McCandless, 18, who died in 1859. Rice speculated the women were Nancy Ann's grandmother and sister.Since the McCandless family was present in early county history, Rice is unsure how many residents also descend from those at the site."I don't think family members even know they're there," she said.
The three McCandless graves are not unique in their unlikely spot.At Moraine alone, at least eight cemeteries are situated along roads or in remote parts of the 16,000-acre park. The cemeteries contain between one and 20 graves."Some are right alongside a road. Some you have to hike to. Some are out in the middle of fields," Derr said.Although some descendants visit and maintain graves, Derr said park workers also try to preserve the abandoned sites, especially when volunteers lend aid.In some cases, headstones have been stolen or moved — also true for Sarah Millinger's resting place, where, according to Benninger, a host of absent stones once turned up at a strip mine.In addition to missing stones, Derr has been told of entire cemeteries whose locations at Moraine remain a mystery.Graveyards off Country Club Road — including a horse cemetery — and one off Alexander Ridge Road are among those not found."There is supposed to be one under water near the 528 Launch," he said of Lake Arthur, a man-made lake."Somebody told me when the water was clear they had actually seen a headstone down there."
Outside the park, many historic plots were left unnoticed on rural roads as well as near housing developments.Joyce Moore's Penn Township neighborhood off of Route 8 is one such example.Moore speculates her driveway was formerly the horse-and-buggy path to the former Zion Baptist Cemetery, located in woods within view of her home.Moore estimates 40-plus graves make up the landlocked cemetery, which contains many graves from the 1800s."My old neighbor told me there were slaves buried in the woods," Moore recalled of a longtime resident, now deceased."At different times I've seen pretty distinct dips in the ground where you could tell a casket is rotted and just fallen in," she added of the likelihood of unmarked graves."I was told it was haunted. I was told there are tombstones that glow, but I haven't seen them."Since cornerstones, now stolen, once indicated a church adjoined the cemetery, Moore is unsure whether a church group somewhere retains ownership or the cemetery has fallen into public domain.Despite the fuzzy details of ownership, Moore said the ground is often mowed and otherwise maintained by private individuals, who occasionally assemble there as a group.In the case of the Millinger cemetery, also known as the Beulah cemetery, Benninger was always told the wooded area of less than an acre is owned by a church in Philadelphia.She also recalls a structure at the cemetery, most likely a grange hall, that burned down during her childhood.Benninger's farm surrounds the abandoned graveyard on three sides. The road borders the other.
Tammy Rupert, map supervisor for the County of Butler, said county assessment maps usually show who owns a given parcel of land; however title information for some parcels is sometimes questionable.In the case of non-taxable parcels like cemeteries, county officials would have little reason to initiate a title search.In many cases, groupings of graves were dug on private homesteads instead of in officially designated cemeteries, which are regulated under state law.Such is the case of the Murrin cemetery in Venango Township, formerly the 250-acre homestead of Hugh Murrin and his "consort," Catherine Shaw Murrin, both buried there in the mid-1800s.Tucked in the woods off a rural road, the plots are owned by a coal company.With permission from the owners, Don Murrin, 85, of Washington Township, mows and does other maintenance around the plots during summer months. His 90-year-old brother Hugh, of Shippensville, sometimes lends a hand.Great-great grandsons of Hugh and Catherine, the brothers are among a small group of relatives remaining in the area. A handful of others occasionally hold reunion picnics at the site.Although the Murrin cemetery was listed in the cemetery inventories done by the Butler County Historical Society in the 1970s, its location was unknown until recently, said Pat Collins, a member of the historical society.Collins is also among a group of genealogical society volunteers who two years ago began documenting all burial sites in the county.The end result will include a book for each township containing maps and GPS coordinates, driving directions, known burials at each site and a CD or DVD with photos of each headstone. A short history and research resource information will also be included.Currently, the most complete listing can be found on the Butler PAGenWeb Web site at www.rootsweb.com/~pabutler. Records also are kept at the historical society and Butler library.But the new project's first installment, Marion Township, is about to be published.Along with the known burial sites, Collins said the group has discovered many previously unknown graves through family histories, wills and word-of-mouth.Since rural dwellers were once often buried at home and without headstones, Collins said many were probably bulldozed for various developments and projects."We have been able to locate the cemetery plot maps for some cemeteries that have not been available to anyone before," she said. "This has enabled us to find the names of people buried in cemeteries that no one could find before."Collins said the public can help by notifying the group of undocumented grave sites and by offering to volunteer."(It is important) to preserve what is left of our ancestors' final resting places," she said."One day these deteriorating sites could be our own."
