A portion of Alum Creek has been closed to the public after partially exposed caskets werediscovered at the site of an old cemetery, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday.
The caskets were found at the site of the Old Cheshire Cemetery, located near the dam on theeastern side of the reservoir.
Corps spokeswoman Peggy Noel about 1,400 people were originally buried in the cemetery. No humanremains were believed to be inside the caskets, she said.
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Larry Buell and his wife, Jenny, became the cemetery sextons in 1962. They faced a challengebecause all of the records had been destroyed in a fire, Ludlow reported.
"There was no way to know where everybody was buried when the records were lost," Larry Buellsaid.
The couple did their best to identify the 1,400 gravesites.
When the Alum Creek Dam was built in the 1970s, the cemetery had to be relocated. When theremains were moved to the cemetery's new location, the caskets were apparently left behind, Noelsaid.
"I do know that when we took these bodies, that some of the vaults and some of the caskets wereleft there. They took the remains out -- the undertakers did that," Larry Buell said. "(They were)placed in another vault and buried at the cemetery."
The Corps, along with state and local authorities, was working with the county coroner todevelop a plan of action.
The Corps said the area would remain closed until an assessment could be completed.
It is at least the second time that low-water levels at Alum Creek have led to the discovery ofcaskets.
Several graves were discovered during a drought in 1991. The remains were moved the followingyear, Ludlow reported.
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