ISU students unearth secrets of poor farm’s graves

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Updated: January 27, 2012 11:32PM

TERRE HAUTE (AP) — A group of Indiana college students who excavated graves at a former county “poor farm” unearthed several Victorian-era caskets, some of them six-sided and one with a glass window that allowed a glimpse of the deceased.

The Indiana State University archaeology students began the excavation after workers digging a trench for a water line exposed 12 graves last summer on the grounds of the former Vigo County Home.

“This was a very painstaking, meticulous process,” said ISU forensic anthropologist Shawn Phillips.

Phillips, who presented the findings Wednesday during a presentation at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, said all of the dirt from the trench had to be carefully screened for artifacts. The students uncovered bone fragments, buttons, coffin nails, thumbscrews, fabrics, wood fragments and glass.

Phillips said the students discovered more than 100 graves.

ISU graduate student Tiffany Grossman, who worked on the project, used “ground penetrating radar” to locate the boundaries of the graveyard, which she said could include 200 graves.

She told the Tribune-Star (http://bit.ly/ySvIKS ) that considering the site was a pauper cemetery, she was surprised that one casket had a glass viewing window that extended the length of the casket’s top.

Phillips said that casket and others uncovered by the students reflect a late 1800s, Victorian interest in “the beautification of death.”

In those days, six-sided caskets were still in use before giving way to modern four-sided versions.

Based on the style of the caskets discovered on the grounds, Phillips believes the burials took place in the last decade of the 1800s or very early 1900s.

He said the Vigo County Home, which locals called the “poor farm,” was apparently a “catch-all” institution for the poor, disabled, elderly and mentally ill.

Over many decades, some of the people who died at the home near Terre Haute North Vigo High School were also buried on the property.

But compared with other county home cemetery projects he’s worked on, Phillips said there is a surprising lack of documentation about the Terre Haute facility.

One unusual feature is the orientation of the graves. Phillips said that traditionally in Christian societies, caskets are placed in the ground in an east-west orientation but that the site’s caskets were placed north to south.

He said the students also discovered the remains of an adult less than 4 1/2 feet tall.

Phillips said his team will present their findings to Terre Haute officials, who must decide whether to continue with development of the property, which is part of the city’s Emergency Responder Training Academy, or declare the area off limits as a cemetery.

In the meantime, the 12 graves disturbed last summer must be relocated to Highland Lawn Cemetery, Phillips said. He said those remains were being documented and stored at the Terre Haute campus until that work is ready to begin.

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Information from: Tribune-Star, http://www.tribstar.com