By KELLY SULLIVAN

CHARLESTOWN – Tobias Saunders, who resided on Burdickville Road in Charlestown, wrote out his will on August 14, 1799. In it, he left an inheritance to each of his twelve children. When his daughter Dorcas and her husband decided, a few years later, to pack all of their belongings into a horse-drawn wagon and head for Brookfield, New York, he presented her with her share early, to help with the move. He died on May 31, 1809 at the age of 78.

Tobias’s body was interred in the Saunders Family Cemetery, not far from his residence where he maintained an orchard and cider mill, a field where he raised Indian corn, and a large farm consisting of sheep, chickens, cows, hogs and horses.

The son of Stephen and Rachel (Bliven), he had married Martha Scott Hall on April 9, 1752 before Justice Joseph Crandall. Martha had pre-deceased Tobias by four years and he was laid to rest beside her in the small graveyard. The other six graves include Martha James, Captain Christopher Vars and four individuals with no inscription on their stones. On the Vars stone is etched the words “Judgment is coming.” For many people, in light of events which occurred at the cemetery last week, it is hoped judgment will be coming in a legal way.

On Wednesday, June 25, Charlestown Police received a call at 11:48 a.m. from an employee of a refuse company who stated that he had been driving down Burdickville when, from the high position of his driver’s seat, he observed what appeared to be a large open hole at Charlestown Historic Cemetery #18. Lieutenant Patrick McMahon arrived on the scene to find a gaping pit in front of the stone of Tobias Saunders. The dirt which had been removed was piled in front of Martha’s stone. An obvious attempt had been made to unearth the body of Tobias.

McMahon contacted a state archeologist as well as cemetery historian Lorraine Tarket-Arruda. Arruda and her research partner Gayle Waite have recently completed a project which documents every gravesite in Charlestown and she said the scene which awaited her at the cemetery made her sick. “I was just disgusted,” she said. “Stealing from the dead is the lowest thing you can do.”

Neither police nor the experts called in could designate a motive for the act, though McMahon stated that in many cases such as this, the perpetrators are looking for skulls to be used in a ritualistic nature. According to Arruda, such attempts are often fruitless. “Bodies are not preserved as long as people think they are,” she said. “To try to dig up something that old, there is not much left. You might find some hinges from the casket or some teeth, but once the earth gets to the body, you’re not going to find much else.”

Presently, bodies are interred in cement vaults. But those which lie in historic graves were buried in crude caskets and prior to that, simply wrapped in linen. Climate, weather, soil content and other factors determine the rate of decomposition.

Fortunately the body of Tobias was not located due to the fact that the perpetrators excavated the wrong area of ground. “All that effort for nothing,” McMahon commented. The hole which spanned three feet in width and six feet in depth was the result of obvious intensive physical labor. “It looks like in the end, they got tired,” Arruda said. “There was a lot of dirt piled up and it looked like they started out good by making a big hole and then you could see it got smaller and smaller.”

Two years ago, grave diggers in Richmond also came up empty handed due to excavating in the wrong location. A gravestone does not always imply a body was ever there to begin with. Some gravestones are simply memorials to persons who were elsewhere, typically further away than their family could travel. Some gravestones are for those who were lost at sea or during journeys, or who were cremated and the ashes placed in possession of the family. In such cases, gravestones were erected so that those left behind would have a specific place to go to in order to mourn.

Even when a body is physically interred in a cemetery, one would often need a cemetery plot map in order to determine specifically where it lay. The number of bodies in one plot, the amount of burial space, religion and other factors often determined exactly where a body was placed in proportion to the marker.

The lack of knowledge and education displayed by the perpetrators has lead Arruda to conclude, “It was kids. At least two if not three. It’s not the kind of thing you do alone. You would take a buddy or two with you.”

As the road is narrow with no place to park anywhere near the cemetery, it is likely the perpetrators came from somewhere within walking distance. And though police do not know exactly when the excavation occurred, Arruda stated that soil conditions indicated it had to have been within three days or less. As someone who has spent countless hours maintaining and recording gravesites,

Arruda said she doesn’t understand how anyone could commit such a grievous crime. “How would they feel if their mother’s grave was dug up?” she asked.

Desecration of a grave is a felony which carries a fine of up to $3,000 and/or imprisonment of up to three years. Anyone with information concerning the recent illegal excavation at the Saunders Family Cemetery may contact the Charlestown Police at 364-1212.