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Unknown Cemetery, 83-1 Summary Report, page 4
Unknown Cemetery, 83-1, Redstone Arsenal, Madison Co. AL, April 28, 2003
A pedestrian entrance gate is located in the southeastern corner of the cemetery fence. The large split-trunk tree appeared to be quite old, and apparently had died some years before 2003. It may not still be standing today. There was also some evidence of several large, very old stumps in the cemetery, indicating that the age of the cemetery would be rather advanced. Large trees grew and then died and were cut away from within the cemetery. Probably the cemetery was cleared of trees when it was first used, because it is difficult to manually dig graves through tree roots. Generally, the older cemeteries had few living trees in them when they were first utilized. That suggests that these stumps represent trees that grew after the cemetery was no longer in use, then the trees died of “old age” after reaching maturity, and now even the stumps are old and disappearing. The suggestion is that use of the cemetery was discontinued after about 100 years ago, as a minimum age.
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