Tombstone House

Yesterday afternoon, after all our preparations for camp were made, M and I went hiking at Five Forks. I was looking for large granite boulders, which I'd been told sat along side the trails. I want to note the location of the boulders for a project I'm working on.We hiked for about two hours and found one illegal geocache, which I had to report to the park law enforcement officers. Its illegal to place geocaches on national park land. I'm all in favor of the geocaching game when people play by the rules, but putting them on park land is clearly not allowed. I did not find my large boulders. We did run across a fairly hidden stretch of wetland with a wildlife viewing station and a log book placed there by a boy scout troop.

Afterward we drove to Poplar Grove National Cemetery. Poplar Grove was the burial place for thousands of Union soldiers. The grounds seem small, but the graves are usually close together and very numerous. It is somewhat striking that all the stones are flat and often concealed by the very short grass. This gives the cemetery the appearance on first glance of a large open lawn punctuated by very large trees. The brick wall at the edges of the graveyard seem like they could easily be seen around the perimeter of the a country estate or city park.

Most of the identities of the soldiers at Poplar Grove are unknown and
so the graves are numbered on small square chunks of granite.

Stone styles differ depending on the year they were last replaced.

There is, of course, a reason that all the stones in Poplar Grove are flat. In the 1930's when all the battlefield parks passed from the Dept of Defense to the Dept of the Interior the first National Park Service superintendent at Petersburg though the cemetery would be much easier to maintain if all the stones were flat on the ground. He was wrong for lots of reasons, but like a good government employee, he didn't let that stop him from trying. The stones were uprooted and the lower (underground) portions of each tombstone was cut off. The cut chunks of stone were actually sold to a man named Oswald Young, who used the blank chunks of marble to build a house not far away. That's right. A house made out of 2,200 marble tombstones , which previously marked the resting places of Union soldiers.

The house looks quite odd. There is something strange about it. It gave me the impression of looking at a very large mausoleum. The place is still privately owned and recently was sold. I wish I knew how much it went for.