Tombstone Tuesday--Christian Plains Cemetery

Christian Plains Cemetery is a fairly small cemetery in Croton Township, on the east side of Newaygo County. You can see from these two pictures, above and below that it is a rural cemetery with a lot of open land. I am not sure if there are unmarked graves or not. I do know that the transcription in the local history room of the graves is very brief, with only 39 names.

Between the age and the lichens, I cannot make out any of the writing on this stone. It appears to be a marble military marker. (I got a big hint from the flag and flag holder on that one.) The transcriptions do list a George Mowatt, Wagoner Co. A, 23rd Mich. but I have no way of knowing if this is indeed his grave.

The sides on this large marker are unreadable. The base however, does clearly say COE. There is a B.F. Coe and his wife, Amanda listed in the transcripts.

This stone appears to be separated from the base, although it is standing and does not appear broken. The name here is Russell. There are several families of Russells in this cemetery. Although all of them appear to have died in the 1800's, I notice that there are still a fairly new bunch of silk flowers at the foot of the base stone.

To me, this is the saddest grave of all the pictures we have. No discernible head or foot stone, or nearby family stone. It appears to be a grave outlined in field stones collected for that purpose.

It isn't clear if the bushes are something planted, or (more likely) wild shrubs that grew up and with the stones, no one was able to mow it.