:( BAD PR :(

[Ronin]

News from WSMV in Nashville

They were digging in a graveyard. Two men have been arrested in Trousdale County for vandalizing a private cemetery. And the mystery remains: what were they looking for?

"I would just like to have shot them is what I'd like to do," Family member Robert Blackwell, Jr. said.

He's talking about two men with METAL DETECTORS and shovels digging up his family's graveyard.

It's a quarter of an acre just outside Hartsville in Trousdale County.

Deputies arrested Michael S. Reid and Dennis W. Spry, both of Hendersonville.

They're charged with "desecration of a venerated object" -- digging up a graveyard.

It

 

[Charlie (OR)]

Have there Ba!!s cut off, never ever detect in a cemetery, outside the gates or fence maybe but not inside.

all it takes is for one or two to make bad PR for all the ones that follow just guidelines.

Charlie

 

[jimp]

Digging in grave yards has been a topic on this forum several times and it is one that I will not do. Respect the dead and private property. This is one subject that makes every person with a detector look BAD.

 

[ihuntrelics!]

[No message]

 

[ihuntrelics!]

n/t

 

[Steve in Indianapolis]

Some of those old graves are not the regulation six feet deep. We are branded unfairly as looters as it is.

It just makes you sick.

Steve in Indianapolis

 

[Anonymous]

This is an interesting thread.

I just started detecting within that last month, but prior to that time talked to a few guys who are in to it heavy.

Their concensus was that cemetary hunting would be OK as long as a person didn`t hunt directly over a grave.

That opinion didn`t seem quite right and certainly fraught with potential problems so it didn`t appeal to me. I`m glad to see how others feel without having to ask this question.

Russ

 

[Anonymous]

We have detectorists digging holes like that in my neck of the woods. They are not in cemeteries, but public places. People like this will and are ruining our hobby. Fill your holes and don't dig a 12 inch in diameter hole for a penny. R.L.

 

[Gilly in Illinois]

You know....It still amaze's how many people in this world have their head up their ass! What did they think they were going to find??? Its hard enough to find new hunting grounds the way it is! Bad...bad stuff this is!!
Gilly in Illinois

 

[Cody]

A friend of mine owns half of a cemetery. I am not sure exactly how that works and why it is half but the cemetery is located just outside of what is listed as a ghost town. We were talking about the history of the area and my hobby and he told me to go hunt the cemetery if I wanted. I declined and explained that I would not be comfortable digging around in a cemetery. He explained that it was common for people to gather at the cemetery back in the early twenties or so to clean up the place and they would have lunch under some trees on the grounds. He also said that there were guys with detectors that hunted the place pretty clean but there might be some good finds that were missed so it would be ok to hunt. I again declined but was somewhat caught off guard by the revelation that it was fairly common for people to hunt the cemetery with detectors. I have no idea what the laws, rules, and the like are but I doubt that anyone would care or be available for enforcement if anyone did object other than to ask the hunter to stay off the graves.

Many cemeteries are not much more than a few graves that have long been forgotten or seldom have visitors. Many are on private property or just for a few families that lived in a rural area. Not everyone thinks it is wrong or of great disrespect to the departed to hunt for coins in a cemetery as long as one keeps off the actual graves. I prefer to not hunt those sites but at the same time have no particular feeling about someone doing so as long as they stay off the graves and respect the property just as one should a public park.

 

[gitterdug]

Now, along this thread DON'T be flamin me, as I do not hunt cemeteries. But it raises a couple of questions in my mind.....

What about Indian Burial Sites? Or along the western migration trails? How about Ancient Sites? Battlegrounds? What I see here is that modern sensibilities have been offended, but I see no difference between hunting cemeteries, and say, digging for artifacts around ancient sites that might hold buried ancestors of anyone.

People who died along the trail were often buried right there, without benefit of permanent marker......so, what do you do should you find a ring on the finger bone of someone who died years ago, say in a wash? Do you leave it alone?

Back in the 70's I dug graves from the period of 700-1200 AD. Was that bad? The bones had long ago turned to dust, and the only thing left was pottery.

How long is long enough to wait, in order to search somewhere?

 

[Rick(ND)]

Just my opinion is that these site along the trail are not marked, so we know nothing about them, but now actual burial ground or cemeteries are marked and when others see you there it is giving a bad rap to all detectorist. Another thing is all of these plots are owned by a private party or a family of the deceased, so wouldnt hunting these be the same as any private property? I have done the roadways going to a cemeteries, but never around the gave site them self. I take that back as I did look for markers for the caretaker around the sites, then detected around the roads going in and out.
I was told years ago that many used to put some valuables around the headstones that belong to the deceased to be left there, so taking them would be grave robbing to me.

Rick

 

[DOC]

n/t

 

[nate-wi]

i would never hunt a cemetary myself...but i can understand what these guys were doing...cemetaries draw many people and i am sure over the years many things have been lost. its not much different than a park in that aspect, but some people just dont know when to draw the line and just say "no"

 

[migolddigger]

It Makes me sick to my stomach. I for one think it's sac religious, but wakes and picnics were often Held near or sometimes in the cemetery's back in the day. Love ones would often lay rings of there diseased behind or near the headstones. One thing I noticed, and if I'm wrong you can correct me. Did these Detectorist fill there holes at all. I see they laked permission to hunt the site. So allot of common rules were broken from the get go. It's this type of Bad P.R. that give us fellow detectors a bad name.

Tom