>X-Sender: cbowerso@acan.net >X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) >Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 12:21:42 -0500 >To: Iras Smith <irassm@acan.net>, AnnBoutwel@aol.com, > AL-MOBILEBAY-L@rootsweb.com >From: cbowerso@acan.net >Subject: Re: CHURCH Street Cemetery >X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by ns1.acan.net id NAA24385 > >I'm not sure if this is what you are refering to, but I suspect it is. So, >here goes. > >Prior to undertaking construction, the Mobile Public Library conducted >ground penetrating radar (GPR) scans of the property immediately outside >the walls of the Church Street Graveyard to help us locate underground >utilities and rumored storage tanks. Since there were homes along >Washington Ave and Monroe Street from as far back as 1830 it we believed it >was possible to find old septic tanks or the like. > >Instead, the GPR showed soil disturbances which were oriented and shaped >like old graves. This was a tremendous surprise to everyone since a new >history of the graveyard had recently been written by John Sledge and >nothing in his research indicated that there would have been graves outside >the walls of the cemetery. The best hypothesis is that there may have been >temporary graves on the site to accomodate those moved from Campo Santo >when the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception was under construction and >the City was awaiting opening the Church Street and Magnolia cemeteries. > >The Library and the City have worked with the State Historic Commission on >this matter. It is generally agreed that the preponderance of evidence is >that these are NOT lost graves. GPR, by the way, shows only that the soil >density is different from that of surrounding areas, it is not a picture of >what is "in the ground". As I write this to you, a test trench is being dug >in cooperation with the State to help clairfy the question. > >I trust this answers your question. > > > > >Christina Bowersox >Information Services Officer > >Administrative Office >Mobile Public Library >700 Government St. >Mobile, AL 36602-1403 >http://www.mplonline.org > >email:cbowerso@acan.net >voice: 334/208-7902 >fax: 334/208-5865 > > >We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put >into it is ours. >Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-61), Swedish statesman, Secretary-General of U.N. >Markings, "Night Is Drawing Nigh" (1963; written 1950). > Iras Fearn Smith Library Associate Mobile Public Library 700 Government Street Mobile AL 36602-1403 http://www.mplonline.org Voice: (334) 208-7094 Fax: (334) 208-5866 e-mail: irassm@acan.net