Nearing Cemetery.

Happy New Year!!!

Well here is my first post of the new year! I hope everyone enjoyed their New Years Eve as much as I did mine. For the past few years my new years plans have always been last minute and most of the time we end up finding ourselves sitting on the couch just watching all the action on T.V. which I guess isn't that bad but it's not always that fun either. This year however, was a blast and an adventure!

My wife and I went to the small town of Cochecton Center in upstate New York with some of our very close friends. We spent the weekend in a converted barn from the 1800's that had been nicely renovated. It was an amazing place. The original barn floor boards where still in tact, there was a great fireplace and an awesome loft space. It was a great escape from all the stresses of life and it was great to be surrounded by such a good group of friends. It's not a setting that I suppose you would immediately think of when planning a New Years Eve party but it was nice knowing that we didn't have to worry about driving anywhere, there were no crowds and we could just relax with good friends in such a cool space.

All of my friends know I am big on Halloween and everything haunt related so upon my arrival my friend Katie (who was our most excellent and awesome hostess for the weekend along with our friend and her boyfriend Brian) told me there was a really cool cemetery just up the road from where we were staying and that it was from the early 1800's as well so of course I had to go take peek for myself.

The cemetery was called Nearing Cemetery and it was established in 1827. I tried to look it up and obtain more information on it but there doesn't seem to be much that I can find. It's a very small cemetery with only a handful of graves and from the looks of it it's not really kept after that much.

We spent maybe 10-15 minutes taking some pictures and video which you can see below. We did some grave etchings of some of the more interesting tombstones but it was hard because most were very worn and you could barely make out what they said. I did take it upon myself to research one tombstone in particular. There seemed to be a family plot in the far back corner of the cemetery for a family by the name of Crosby. The largest headstone was that of a James A. Crosby (seen below) he was the son of Scipio L. & Margaret Crosby. Now in my research  I looked up James first but there were quite a few names that went by James A. Crosby in the 1800's and it was hard to narrow down the one I was looking for so I decided to look up Scipio L. Crosby because his name was a bit more unique and with some digging and luck I found him! Scipio was a soldier in the Civil War and was in the 143rd Infantry. He served with the 143rd until the end of the war and was wounded in battle, it was a severe leg wound. I didn't find much more about Scipio beyond that but I hope to look into it a bit more in the future. If you are interested in reading some of the war journals that were written by various commanders of the 143rd Infantry during the civil war you can read them HERE.

If you have never taken the time to visit an old or historic cemetery I highly suggest it especially if your a haunter because the reference you can take away is amazing. The detailing that went into headstones centuries ago is amazing and for me I just find it interesting. Cemeteries like Nearing Cemetery are out there, we may not know where they are but if you come across one chances are it's been abandoned for quite some time so I am sure the friendly ghost of years past won't mind if you come to say hello. Just be respectful and hey, maybe you will even make a friend like I did in Scipio.

Happy New Year!