I'm a history buff and do genealogy. I really love reading the old books from the 1800's. A recent one I have found tells the life of Bill Arp.
We have worked, for years, to find information on my wife's ancestor who served in the Revolutionary War. We finally found his grave a few months ago. I won't go into the details because I know you really aren't interested in a long story. To sum it up, we found the grave and were assured we could visit it and place a marker on it. There was an unmarked grave next to it which we thought was his wife. I'll just copy a portion of the e-mail which gave us the latest update. To say the least, I am really pissed off. I don't know what to do about this. I know that laws were violated. Excerpt from e-mail: My GGGGGranduncle, Abraham Helton, was a veteran of Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War and a Cherokee Indian. He is buried at Frogtown Winery, 3300 Damascus Church Road , Dahlonega , GA 30533 , phone number 706-865-0687. The owners are Craig and Cydney Kritzer. This is private property. The problem is that his grave and that of his Cherokee wife Katie Owl Helton have been desecrated by Frogtown Winery employees. The headstones were dug up and graves plowed over to plant grape vines. The owners deign knowledge of the graves but the previous owner, Marlan Turner, 706-865-4599, informed them of the graves. Richard Hester, 706-878-8595, their Vineyard Manager, informed them that the graves had been desecrated by the "Guatemalan" employees against his orders and a marker should be placed on the graves. Mr. Craig Kritzer agreed with this but later changed his mind. JB Jones, 706-865-3906, a member of the Georgia Council on American Indian Affairs, remembers seeing the graves when he was young. I have been refused entry onto their property to replace the removed stones from Abraham and Katie’s graves with a small flat stone that is furnished to veterans by the Veterans Administration. Abraham died in 1843 and his wife Katie in 1840. As a veteran of Viet Nam< /st1:place> with two Purple Hearts I find it very offensive that anyone would desecrate a grave of any veteran. Abraham Helton did not only fight for his country but for its independence. In years past any Indian grave was open game for souvenir hunters. The graves were violated just to look for some trinkets that they could sell for profit. I am asking for help to place one single flat headstone, containing both of their names, on the graves of Abraham Helton and Katie Owl Helton and have reasonable descendants visitation rights. If this was your Mother’s grave, how would you feel if someone discarded her headstone because it was inconvenient to them? All I am asking is for the grave of another human being be treated with respect with dignity. <end of e-mail> I'm so pissed I could spit. Why the hell does this country allow graves of Revolutionary soldiers to be desecrated? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
