I love adventure and the idea of adventuring…is adventuring even a word? I love wondering where my feet will take me as I leave my front door. Or, as Biblo said best…
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Bilbo Baggins- Lord of the Rings- The Fellowship of the Ring- J.R.R Tolkien
I like the idea of wandering in a wood or on a trail, trying to keep my feet but being so willing to be swept off. Always imagining I am in the footsteps of a grand and epic plot, wondering what will I find around the next curve in the path?
I recently found my feet in an old and nearly forgotten cemetery, I know, great October adventure, right? That’s actually how I sold the trip to a few of my friends…gonna explore a creepy old cemetery, want to go? Always have friends in your life who will answer a question like that with an enthusiastic YES!
I first saw the cemetery through the trees along the side of the road from our car, going 70mph on a very busy highway. It was the odd location of the sign that made me so curious, it was right off the highway with no obvious entrance or exits to get there. The car was moving too fast and the woods were too dense to really be able to get a closer look.
The first time I saw it was a glimpse of an old sign, and on every trip, after that, I tried to see more and more of the cemetery. I love it when leaves fall off the trees…you get to see really cool things on the side of the road. It was last winter that I was able to get the best look and see a few of the headstones. Remember what Ferris Bueller said…
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once and awhile, you could miss it.
Ferris Bueller
He was right. I would see the old sign for the cemetery every time I was on that road and I was dying to explore. So, after a year, I decided to follow Ferris’ advice and check it out. But how did I get there? There were no roads that I could follow, no obvious trails or paths. I was determined to find a way and, armed with the name of the cemetery, Google did not disappoint. I found the website that very dedicated caretakers put together. You can check out all their hard work here.
This is the Union Campground Cemetery. It is located off Highway 65, just north of the I-44 exit in Springfield. You have to follow a trail to get to the actual site, and that makes exploring it even better. It feels a bit like you are traveling in time.
The cemetery was established in 1840 and contains the final resting place of about 200 people. Since their burials, time has marched on, families have moved, and new roads have been built. I am not sure the founders would recognize the place.
Researchers only have documentation on about 80 of the names engraved on the headstones. We saw family groupings and graves for infants and small children. It was almost maddening trying to make out the names on the weather-worn headstones. I really wished I would have thought to bring paper and a pencil to try to do a rubbing to make out the words. I guess I have to go back again! The Union Campground Cemetery is no longer active, the last funeral was in the mid-1920s.
You can tell that great care has been taken to upkeep and even repair some of the fallen headstones. The graves that have been identified as unknown have been carefully marked, although the placement of the stones may not actually reflect the actual burial sites. It was honestly a bit moving to stand there and look at the rows of unknown headstones, carefully placed side by side.
This was not a Civil War Union cemetery as the name might imply, but rather it is a church burial ground. The cemetery was unusual for the time as it held the remains of both white and black from the area. It was one of the earliest integrated places of burial. It was amazing being there and also a little emotional. So many graves marked “unknown” or whose headstones are unreadable, the names and lives of those people are lost to history. Maybe it is all the Toy Story movies I watched with my son…but the idea of something being lost and forgotten makes me sad. Who were they? What was their story? I was glad that, at least for that moment, they were being remembered. But why were they in that particular spot?
The church, it is thought, bought the land to use as a permanent camp meeting location where church families and even other churches could gather in open-air meetings. I can see why they were attracted to this particular area…it is lovely. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church bought 39.6 acres of land on September 29, 1840. The actual church was burned by a fire, historians are uncertain of the actual date of the fire or even the cause. I looked around to try to find any clues to the location of the church. A major highway was built in the 1980s near the cemetery and may have disrupted the remains. We did see bricks and other building materials but those are the only clues we could see. can imagine it was even better before a four-lane highway was built next to it.
I found the cemetery just by looking out the car window and I am beyond glad I was paying attention; it was a great adventure! It makes me wonder what I else might have missed or what I was too distracted to see. I find myself paying much more attention to what is around me. Fall is a great time to be able to see the unseen, look through the woods, and find the hidden adventure just waiting to be explored, plus…way fewer creepy-crawly things to interfere along the way.
What amazing places have you explored recently? What should I check out next? Let me know in the comments below.
Until next time,
Kimberly