Kings Creek Cemetery

           King's Creek Presbyterian Church was organized on this spot in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, in 1785.  But settlers were living in this area well before that time.  The Doak Family farm, perhaps three miles away, dates back to 1772.  Both the Doak Farm and King's Creek Cemetery now find themselves within the bounds of Raccoon Creek State Park.  Poor Isabel Martin--surely a Protestant--died in 1874.  Why do you think someone has placed an open Bible (sopping wet) and a suspiciously Roman-looking Jesus on her grave at this late date?  Surely there's no one left who knew her.  You can see where the rain has soaked the pages of the book and splattered the tombstone with a pulpy mist.

           My guess is that Isabel's grave has been visited by folks looking for paranormal experiences.  King's Creek Cemetery is a favorite with local ghost-chasers.  It's isolated.  It's on public land.  And it's old.  The oldest legible headstone (bottom photo) dates back as far as 1810.  However, there are surely older graves here.  I was hiking in a nearby area of Raccoon Creek State Park--by pure coincidence on All Saints' Day--and decided to stop by and explore the cemetery on my way home.  I bet there were Halloween revelers here last night, drinking, wandering around in the dark, getting a spooky thrill.

           Most of the graves date from the 18-teens through the 1870s, although King's Creek Church relocated to Florence, PA, as early as 1798.  There's another interesting cemetery on the sight of the former Florence Presbyterian Church--which in turn closed its doors in 2005 and merged with Paris Presbyterian Church.  I'm not sure why so many far-flung, unincorporated communities in this area are named after splendid European cities... But I must say--perhaps with some sectarian bias--Presbyterians rock.  Theirs are the oldest churches, cemeteries, and institutions in this region.  Wherever you find 18th century relics in Southwest PA, you're unearthing the artifacts of Old Presbyteria, land of the Scotch-Irish settlers.

           It was a somber, gray day for walking in the woods, exploring hallowed ground on the day after Halloween.  The cemetery is located on a little spur of land that is separated from the main body of the park by PA168.  Private properties push up against the park's borders at this point.  There's a gaggle of unsightly old campers--hunting camps--and some rundown sheds, deer-stands, and shooting ranges just adjacent to the graveyard.

          This is a strange area.  It's just east of the border with the West Virginia Panhandle.  The countryside is pleasant but frequently interrupted by large, ugly industrial zones: strip mines, gravel pits, trucking depots.  And there's heavy truck traffic all over the back roads.  Much of the traffic--but not all--is from the frackers (may their graves be as desolate and forlorn as these!) 

           There are "hollows," or narrow stream valleys, all along the state line around here.  The people who live in these hollows are called "hoopies" by their rural neighbors just to the east.  It's an unkind slur, but it's true that this place has a distinctly Appalachian feel to it.  And just to prove the stereotype, click on the above photo to read the misspellings etched in stone!  A husband and wife are buried together here, and it says, "They ware lovely in their lives, and in their deaths they ware not devided."

           Hoopies or no, they sure knew how to fashion pieces of art out of rock.  The stones are so elegantly worked.  Look at the symmetry, the florid detail, the graceful script.  This one dates back to 1824, and yet it's still legible.

          What of the sainted dead, lying beneath their stones in their moldering Sunday finery, some of them in powdered wigs?  Do they rest from their labors?  Do they walk with us, unseen and unknown?  Is there an afterlife of punishments and rewards?  Or are they merely gone?  It reminds me of an anonymous poem I memorized years ago:

Agatha Morley, all her life,

grumbled at dust, like a good wife.

Dust on a table, dust on a chair,

dust on a mantel she could not bear.

She forgave fault in man and child, 

but a dusty shelf could set her wild.

She bore with sin without protest, 

but dust thoughts preyed upon her rest.

Agatha Morley is sleeping sound,

far beneath the dusty ground.

Six feet under the ground she lies

with dust at her feet and dust in her eyes.