Wells Township
Jefferson County, Ohio
Photo courtesy of Tammy Hosenfeld - April, 2007
The Hyndman/Hindman Cemetery has been probed and restored by Terry, Tammy, and John Paul Hosenfeld, John Borkowski and Flora L. VerStraten. The property owners, the Renforth's (as of April of 2007) were excited when we arrived and found several tombstones buried in the ground. We dug up several buried tombstones, epoxied broken tombstones and reset and leveled all the tombstones. Now people passing by can notice the little cemetery sitting in the front of the yard, right by the road! Many remember more tombstones and others remember one black colored tombstone with inscriptions of all those buried there. We were informed that someone may have a rubbing of the black tombstone, but this has never been confirmed.
This photo was taken by Flora L. VerStraten in April of 2007. Upper right corner is Tammy Hosenfeld.
As you can see in the photo, by probing, we located several buried tombstones. These tombstones were dug up, cleaned, reset, and epoxy in place by Terry, Tammy and John Paul Hosenfeld, John E. Borkowski and Flora L. VerStraten. This restoration project required a few trips back to allow time for epoxy to set and to continue probing.
On our first day probing, we located 7 tombstones/pieces buried in the ground. The land owners gave us permission to probe and work in their yard while they were gone at work.
The owners told us that people in their neighborhood were calling them at work to report that some ladies were in there yard putting tombstones in the ground. When the owners arrived home, they asked us where we got the tombstones. Our reply, "we probed and dug them up out of the ground!" The Renforth's couldn't believe that they had lived there several years and had no idea there were more tombstones. They were always told that the tombstones were removed, thrown down over the hill and taken out of the small cemetery years ago.
While we were probing, we located several old native stones and just plain rocks that appeared to be in the "row" with the existing tombstones. We feel that there could have been up to 20-25 burials originally in the cemetery. The WPA map at the courthouse also indicates more burials at this location.
The following photos courtesy of Brain DeRe Taken 2008
