Conclusion

On August 4th, the Alfred Jones Cemetery was moved.

Excerpt from Franklin County Cemetery Society communication.

"We found absolutely nothing that resembled human remains. We did find one piece of a bone about three inches long. It was broken on both ends. It may or may not have been human, although it was buried rather deep. We found about five shards of some type of pottery, also buried 20 or more inches deep. One piece of metal and two nails were found. There were no tell-tale black stains in the soil. That is usually the indicator that you’ve found the ‘remains’. In some cases, the body has so completely returned to the earth that it is indiscernible what is earth and what might have once been human. In cases like this, you simply take a reasonable amount of soil from the ‘grave’ and transfer it to the new location. That’s what we did. Each of the eleven identified grave sites was opened to a depth of 5’ or more. We then took a five gallon bucket of earth from the hole, and then placed that dirt in a heavy plastic bag. We also moved the pottery shards and the unknown bone fragment.

In the eyes of the law, the “Jones Cemetery” is now gone; moved to a new location. Due to some of the comments I heard yesterday, I would like to clarify my position on this project. I am not an advocate of moving cemeteries nor would I ever ‘desecrate’ a burial site. However, in the real world, things happen that we don’t always agree with. The Jones site would have been excavated and moved whether or not we chose to be involved with it. Had we not been involved, it’s possible that the remains would have been moved in a manner not appropriate; although not purposely so. Also, I felt that the remains should be reburied in a place that “made sense”. In other words, not moved to a modern cemetery; and that’s almost always what happens in these cases. In St. Charles County a 150-plus year old cemetery was moved to St. Charles Memorial Gardens, one of those flat “garden” type cemeteries. It just seems inappropriate somehow. Personally, I felt that this would be an interesting, and perhaps unique, situation for our group to get involved with.

So, today is a new day. The eleven forever unknown human beings who rested for 150 years in the same location are now in their new home where likely they will remain forever. The voices of the dead are unheard by most of us, but I would like to believe that those souls are somehow satisfied. After all, isn’t it better than being buried in a Target parking lot?"