Historic cemeteries find almost 500 unmarked graves

By Amanda Rogers

Mansfield Record

Members of the Mansfield Cemetery and Mansfield Community Cemetery knew that there were unmarked graves in the two historic graveyards on Burl Ray Road.

But no one imagined there would be almost 500.

Benton Smith of Sentry Mapping used ground penetrating radar (GPR) to discover the unmarked plots last week, placing small red and pink flags at each grave he discovered. By the end of the week, the bright flags looked like a wildflowers blooming across the 11 acres of the 150-year-old cemeteries.

“If you’re going to preserve the heritage of a cemetery, you have to create an as-built map, a map of how it actually is,” Smith said. “If you’re going to lay out a map, you have to do ground penetrating radar. It helps find unmarked graves and confirms the location of existing graves.”

GPR is a non-invasive method that uses radio waves to see into the soil, detecting buried objects like utilities, voids and archaeological features. It works by transmitting radio waves and measuring the reflections that occur when the waves encounter different materials underground.

Smith said he used a three-wheeled cart, a riding lawnmower-like device with an antenna that emits radar signals, to scan the ground in the cemeteries, marked the graves that didn’t have headstones, then documented all of the graves with GPS locators and photos of existing headstones.

“GPR detects the composition of the soil changes,” Smith said. “Wooden boxes disintegrate. What we detect is voids. Graves don’t cave all the way in. If they do, we can still see the backfill. We are obviously looking for caskets, vaults and backfill, too. If a body was buried in a shroud 200 years ago, everything is decomposed. But the void remains. Backfill is where the hole was cut out. We can see where the hole was cut and there’s fresh dirt. That’s how we’re able to see unmarked graves.”

Unmarked graves are a common problem for cemeteries, Smith said.

Over time, headstones are damaged, lost, vandalized or overgrown. Temporary markers get lost or washed away. And sometimes people just forget, or can’t afford, to buy a headstone.

The location of existing graves is crucial to the cemetery associations so that they know where new graves can be dug. Both cemeteries have been hesitant to sell plots or bury people in the older sections of their cemeteries, because they didn’t know where people are buried.

And Smith said there are probably even more that he couldn’t find. Trees and brush make it difficult to scan the ground and trees hold water underground, which also creates a void.

In June, the Mansfield Cemetery Association began raising funds for GPR survey, which cost $29,500 for both of the adjacent cemeteries. So far, the association has raised approximately $19,000 with t-shirt sales, fund-raisers and donations. They are still looking to raise the final $10,000, she said.

“Now we can prove between our documentation and what he’s found where we have graves available,” McKay said. “We have to figure out some way to permanently mark (the unmarked graves). In the future, we are going to charge a deposit and that will go toward a marker if they don’t place one.”

The Mansfield Cemetery Auxiliary was incorporated in the 1970s, then transitioned to the Mansfield Cemetery Association in 2001. The Mansfield Community Cemetery has been managed by Bethlehem Baptist Church since 2010.

Findagrave.com has records for 4,409 gravesites in the Mansfield Cemetery, and another 289 in the Mansfield Community Cemetery. The new graves are spread across both cemeteries, making the total almost 5,200 combined.

Smith said his company provides a digital map with boxes where all of the graves – marked and unmarked – are located. If a headstone is present, the boxes contain the names on the headstones.

“We even color code them for military service,” Smith said. “At the end of the day, they are going to have a documented record. We also provide a searchable web map and QR code.”

He said Sentry Mapping uses drone imaging to layout the map, rather than satellite.

The first recorded burial in the Mansfield Cemetery was for Julia Man, wife of Ralph S. Man, co-founder of Mansfield, in 1868. Her 4-year-old daughter, Julia Alice Man, was buried next to her in 1872. In 1874, Ralph Man conveyed 2.7 acres of his property, including the graves, to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church for a cemetery.

The first known grave in the adjacent Mansfield Community Cemetery was of 14-year-old Milton Wyatt, who was buried in 1874.

The cemeteries, which were divided by a fence for years, were also divided by race, with the Mansfield Cemetery for white residents and the “Colored Cemetery,” now known as the Mansfield Community Cemetery, for Black residents.

The fence is gone and now both cemetery associations are focusing on the future, with a lot of new information.

To donate to the cost of the GPR survey, send funds to Mansfield Cemetery Association, P.O. Box 1501, Mansfield, TX 76063. Mark donations for the GPR Survey.