A head full of Sebring

Since around April this year the idea of the Sebring graveyard has been bobbing around in the back of my head. The notion that there's an old cemetery I haven't been to, within walking distance of my house, is like a loose tooth I can't stop poking at with my tongue.

This is the tract that April's blog post talks about:

(Click for a larger view.)

Last month I made friends with a fantastic old woman who lives across the square from me. Estella Taylor-Hunsberger-Fagan (though everyone calls her Stella) has lived in the same house since she moved to Carversville in 1952, when she was 20. She's a total spitfire and knows all the things I'm curious about — the little stuff that changes history from a bunch of boring names and dates into something much more tangible and real.

We were hanging out the other day when I remembered the Sebring graveyard. I've never been able to really pinpoint where it is (it turns out that's because the headstones are all gone) so I asked Stella if she'd ever heard of it.

"Oh sure," she said, as if this was something everyone knew. "It's just up the street by so-and-so's house." And she drew me a little map.

Hooray!

The next day I went to the Office of Deeds and found the tiny parcel on a tax map, but — for the first time — I left the courthouse feeling more puzzled than when I'd come in.

Here's the thing: Though the cemetery has its own little parcel and corresponding ID number, the land has never had a deed attached to it.

Maybe you wiser history nerds out there are familiar with situations like this, but I'd never seen it before. When I brought up the assessment card for the cemetery, it was blank but for three letters at the lower right: N.D.R.

No deed recorded.

So, though the old graveyard sits basically in somebody's yard, and just looks like a flat stretch of grass, they don't actually own it. No one owns it.

Naturally most of the people I've told this to have responded with "Heh heh! You should go and, like, hang out there, dude! No one could make you leave!"

... Which is the last thing I want to do. I'm crazy about treating all the stuff I research respectfully, probably to the point of ridiculousness. I won't knock on doors or walk in yards. I hardly even take photos. So there's no way I'm going to stop around these people's yard, even if it's not technically theirs.

But I digress. Anyway, I guess I could have let the mystery end there, but that's not how I roll, yo.

Davis's History of Bucks County describes the graveyard, and mentions several headstones being there, with dates ranging from about 1766 to 1779. History of Bucks County was written in 1876 (re-released in 1905 and again in 1975), so we know the stones vanished some time after 1876.

Where did they go? Who moved them? Why?

I've heard some theories but I don't know yet how much fact there is to them. So that's where I'm at.

Also, coincidentally, I was leaving work with a head full of Sebring yesterday when I looked up from my reverie and saw this:

Neat! But what does it mean?