There are many small family cemeteries with
burials from as early as the 1700s located
throughout Eastern Pennsylvania. The land
in this region was predominately used for
farming, with mills and furnaces also
serving as popular sources of income.
Several of these local cemeteries have
fallen into a state of disrepair over the
centuries. Record-keeping is not always
precise and headstones may become lost or
misplaced over the course of time. The
Zimmermans are well known as important
public figures in the Kutztown, Pennsylvania
area. Local historian, Carl Peterson, has
reason to believe that the patriarch
Sebastien Zimmerman and his wife Elizabeth
were buried at a small cemetery known as the
Geehr cemetery. This cemetery contains only
three grave markers enclosed by a wooden
fence 3.3 m by 3.9 m. However, none of the
headstones are labeled with Sebastien's or
Elizabeth's names. Geophysical surveys were
performed in the area surrounding the
cemetery to determine if the extent of
burials exceeds the confines of the fenced
area. A GSSI SIR 3000 GPR unit with 400MHz
antenna, Geometrics G-858 magnetometer in
gradiometer mode, and Geophex Gem2 were used
for the surveys.
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GEL 358 students survey the Geehr Cemetery
with the Gem2.
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Emily Snyder surveys the Siegfried cemetery
with the GSSI GPR unit.
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The Siegfried cemetery, located 1.5
kilometers southeast of the Geehr cemetery,
is much larger and enclosed by a rock wall
27.5 m by 30.5 m. Local residents assert
that the Siegfried's allowed less fortunate
neighbors who did not have the means to bury
their family member properly to bury their
dead in the surrounding fields during the
depression. The interior of this cemetery
was surveyed with the GPR and magnetometer
and additional surveying was completed in
the area adjacent to the cemetery walls.
The geophysical surveys show several
anomalies indicative of unmarked burials
inside the cemetery walls at the Siegfried
cemetery and outside the cemetery walls at
both the Siegfried and Geehr cemeteries. |