Sharing "Then & Now" Photos from Scott and Venus Andersen - Scenes from the Dean Cemetery - Buckskin Twp., Ross County, Ohio - 2011 - 2018

From 2011 to present, Scott and Venus Andersen have been regularly visiting and conducting grounds and gravestone restoration and preservation work at the Dean Cemetery in Ross County. 

They have now totally transformed the relatively small size cemetery from its forlorn and forgotten appearance into being a peaceful and pristine sacred place worthy of those who found eternal rest there when Ohio was a young state.  

Early on, several trees, overgrown weeds, and even poison ivy were removed.  During many visits, gravestones were cleaned, repaired, and reset when needed.  There were discoveries!  Once long hidden gravestones were uncovered during the course of their work.
  

The heavy duty digging is no longer required, but regular maintenance of the grounds are ongoing. 

Extending deep-felt congratulations to Scott and Venus Andersen for their tireless efforts in preserving and restoring the Dean Cemetery to its original appearance and condition - reviving the respect and relevance to the community that it truly deserves.

Sharing with permission

All photographs by Scott Andersen

 (Above)
October 4, 2013

A exciting discovery!

When a long buried gravestone was unearthed

after being under another gravestone

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(Above)
2011 - 2014 photographs 

By Scott Andersen

Dean Cemetery

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(Above)

September 2011 top two photographs

April 30, 2018 bottom two photographs

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(Below)
Four scenes from the Dean Cemetery

Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio

April 30, 2018

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The Dean Cemetery / The Old Presbyterian Cemetery

Find A Grave 

Then & Now at the Dean Cemetery, Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio

The photographs below:
The top photo is a panoramic view (a composite of five - 4" x 6" photos) of the Dean Cemetery as it looked in September of 2011 prior to any work being done to remove trees and underbrush; clean, repair and reset gravestones; and the unearthing of buried gravestones -- of which there have been several discovered since that time.

The second photo is a side-by-side comparison of how the Dean Cemetery looked in September of 2011 (left photo) and how the cemetery looks today (photo to the right taken November 11, 2015).

The bottom two photographs of the Dean Cemetery were taken November 11, 2015. 

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 Once fallen over gravestones are now standing straight in a cleaned and repaired condition.  The markers pristinely dot the green grass landscape.

An environment of eternal rest now made more peaceful for those buried at this early family graveyard in Ross County, Ohio has come about through the dedicated work of Scott and Venus Andersen.

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  All photographs are courtesy of Scott Andersen.

  Dean Cemetery in Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio.

 

Sharing the Latest Marker Discovery at the Dean Cemetery, Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio

 Photographs courtesy of Scott Andersen

D. Simmermon - Find A Grave Memorial

D. Simmermon - Find A Grave Memorial

Photographs below taken by Scott Andersen

Venus Andersen probed, discovered, and unearthed the D. Simmermon marker.  

Although broken, overall the early undated marker was found in remarkably good condition. 

 

Robert Dickey (1745 - 1817) - Find A Grave Memorial

Robert Dickey (1745 - 1817) - Find A Grave Memorial

(Photograph by Scott Andersen)

The Gravesite of Revolutionary War Veteran, Pvt. Robert Dickey, will be Marked by a Hand Carved Gravestone Created by Notable Indiana Carver, Casey Winningham

Thanking Scott Andersen for sharing two photographs (shown below) of the Robert Dickey gravestone that was recently hand carved by well-known Indiana carver, Mr. Casey Winningham. 

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The gravestone recreates an original design with detailed carved motifs and inscription appropriate for the date of death time period.   
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Rev. War veteran, Robert Dickey, was buried at the Dean Cemetery, in Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio.
 

Abstracted from the "Find A Grave" Memorial of Robert Dickey:

"Revolutionary War Patriot.
Light horseman in Capt Thomas Kirkpatrick's Company, Col Tom Bratton's Regiment in South Carolina.
Member of the 2nd Provincial Congress, 1775-1776.
Born in Albermarle County, Virginia.
Son of John Dickey and Martha McNeeley, both of Ireland."

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(Two views of the Pvt. Robert Dickey Gravestone)

 

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 (Photograph below taken by Scott Andersen - June, 2014)

The gravesite of Pvt. Robert Dickey

(Photograph below)

Scott Andersen at the Dean Cemetery in September, 2011

(Photograph Below)

Gravestone Carver, Casey Winningham

Sharing an Update - Dean Cemetery, Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio

     Scott and Venus Andersen have spent 3 years routinely working at the Dean Cemetery in Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio where some of his ancestors are buried.  

     The photographs below illustrate the dramatic progress that has been made both with the clean up of the cemetery's grounds and the gravestones that they have located, cleaned, repaired, and re-set during that time.  

 

     Thanking Scott Andersen for sharing his most recent photographs taken at the Dean Cemetery:

From Scott Andersen (September 17, 2014):
     "Today, I finally got around to digging up Mary Lawhead's foot stone. We've known where the broken off base was located for some time now, and recently, Venus had located what we have assumed was the rest of the stone buried several inches down, just next to the base. Well, I dug up the whole thing, got the base out of the ground, and the part that had been hidden. What we found though was that pieces were still missing. 

     But, after taking a close look at what we had, I realized that at least some of the missing pieces were over in the "junkyard". 

     The piece that is the top of the stone, with the rounded edge had been lying over there in the pile. So that was quite a thrill, to match up one of those orphaned fragments with a "known" stone. 

     But, there was still a pretty substantial piece of the puzzle missing. After a few minutes of probing the area around the foot stone's location, we found the small piece that you see in the photo."

  

  (Above - Photograph courtesy of Scott Andersen)

Fragments for Mary Lawhead's footstone.

(Above - Photograph courtesy of Scott Andersen)

All of the found fragments of Mary Lawhead's footstone. 

 

 (Above - Photograph courtesy of Scott Andersen)

September 17, 2014 longer distance view of the Dean Cemetery 

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Below are photographs taken at the Dean Cemetery in September of 2011 courtesy of Scott Andersen

  (Scott Andersen above at the Dean Cemetery in September, 2011)

(Below are two random views of the Dean Cemetery in September, 2011)

 

Samuel Cunningham (1778 - 1845) - Find A Grave Memorial

Edit: Samuel Cunningham (1778 - 1845) - Find A Grave Memorial

 (Photo above of the Samuel Cunningham gravestone from Scott Andersen - August 25, 2014)

From Scott Andersen:

"Venus and I went to the Dean cemetery yesterday. We worked on the Cunningham stones there. One that I had reset last fall moved substantially over the winter, and we fixed that. I also repaired the foot stone of Robert Cunningham, and put it in place.

We reset Samuel Cunningham's stone. It was the first I ever found at the cemetery. It was upright, but obviously sunken into the ground. You can see in the picture that it had sunk to the point that about half of it was below the earth. Considering that these were originally set with about a third of the stone below ground, it had moved quite a bit. It was also tangled up pretty good in the roots of a large tree. We had the tree removed last fall. Roots; still there and full of fight! Venus also located a footstone, or part of it, for John Milton Hare, and one for Mary Lawhead."

Sharing the Latest Photographs of the Dean Cemetery in Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio

Scott Andersen has been continuing with clean up work at the Dean Cemetery in Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio.

  More of the overgrowth on the grounds has been cleaned up and cleared away greatly improving the appearance and overall condition of this smaller size cemetery.

Thanking Scott for sharing his latest photographs posted below.

 Above: 

 All of these Lawhead stones were down. The center one, Layfayette, was the one about 6 to 8 inches underground, and never before transcribed.

Above

The gravesite of Revolutionary War veteran Robert Dickey.

 The above photograph shows an area needing additional work to repair and re-set downed stones.  The number of damaged and downed gravestones is much less than it was when Scott first started working on restoring the Dean Cemetery.

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Below are two longer range views of the Dean Cemetery as it currently appears.

AND

The last picture shown below is what some of the Dean Cemetery looked like before Scott started his work only a few years ago.

Unpuzzling the Past from Pieces of Gravestone Found at the Dean Cemetery in Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio

Scott and Venus Andersen continued their 2014 Spring clean up work today at the Dean Cemetery in Ross County. 

 They shared good news of their unexpected success in locating stone fragments that have now solved the mystery of the identity of a 10 year old boy who died in 1820.  The main gravestone of John Milton Hare had been broken.  Missing key pieces with his surname and death year had been long buried nearby.  Thanks to their probing work, some of those pieces were unearthed today. Thus, John Milton was really John Milton Hare!  

Notes from Scott:

"We spent a long day at the Dean Cemetery.

Burned a good portion of the brush from trees that were cut down last fall, but there is still a long way to go before that project will be complete.  I'd say there's at least another three days of work, just doing that.

Good news; we made another find.  I was cleaning up an area along the north fence line that has an old tree stump.  There had been a very large rotting log laying in this spot, and as I moved it, I noticed another little stone poking out of the ground.  A little brushing with a wisk broom revealed that it had carving on the face of it.

 

When I saw the carving on the stone, it immediately reminded me of one of the broken stones in the big pile at the middle of the yard.  This one has been a bit of a mystery, as only the left half of the stone existed, with the inscription;

John Milton

Son of Daniel and Sar

Died 22 Sep

I was never sure whether his last name was Milton, or if that was a middle name.

 

You can see in the photo that the stones match perfectly.  We dug further and found that the base of the stone is complete.

We got out the prober, and poked around the surrounding area, and found a few more pieces of the stone."

  

The stone's transcription is:

 

John Milton

Son of Daniel and Sarah Hare

Died Sep 22 1820

in his 10 year

  

 (The photo above shows three unearthed pieces placed next to the main stone.) 

Spring Scenes from the Dean Cemetery - Ross County, Ohio

Sharing two late April 2014 longer distance cemetery photographs from Scott Andersen who continues his work at the Dean Cemetery in Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio. 

During the past three years, Scott has removed a large amount of weed overgrowth and some encroaching trees.  Also, several broken stones that had been lying on the ground for decades have been cleaned and re-set.  He has unearthed long buried gravestones; putting them upright once again to take their respected places in the cemetery.

The Dean Cemetery no longer looks neglected and abandoned thanks to the tireless ongoing work that is being carefully conducted by Scott and his wife, Venus. 

 

The Dean Cemetery is listed on "Find A Grave" with 28 interments.

Moving to the Next Stage of Restoration at the Dean Cemetery in Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio

Scott and Venus Andersen have now arrived at the next stage of their restoration endeavors at the Dean Cemetery, and thus a decision was made that it would be best to remove several trees at this early Ross County, Ohio burying ground.  

Since they began their work over two years ago, many gravestones have had to be cleaned and re-set properly in the ground.  Many had been found broken in uneven pieces and needed extensive repair work to become whole once again.  

Scott and Venus are now better able to care for the gravestones that they have unearthed, with more to come.  Going forward, in order to protect the markers from any further damage or destruction caused by fallen tree branches and limbs, some of the most encroaching trees have been recently removed; as shown in the photographs below: 

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 (Above)

Recently unearthed is what appears to be a primitive footstone by the gravesite of
  Celestine A. Collins
who died in 1814.

Taking a Look at the Lawhead Family Buried at the Dean Cemetery in Ross County, Ohio

Once again, we'll return to the Dean Cemetery in Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio to learn more about the recent gravestone discoveries made by Scott an Venus Andersen.  They have been working for several months to restore the grounds and gravestones in this rural burying ground where so many early area pioneers were buried and, truly until Scott and Venus came along; largely forgotten about.  

Today, we'll focus specifically on their breakthroughs that pertain to the Lawhead family buried at the Dean Cemetery. 

Sharing Scott's comments and photographs below:

October 25, 2013

     "Venus and I had another very successful day.  We put William Lawhead's stone back in place, found the stone belonging to a child of Mary Henry and Thomas Lawhead, and found the base for Mary Henry's broken off headstone.

     Venus is magic with the prober.  I found the base to a headstone 1 space over from where William Lawhead is buried.  I probed around just a bit, hoping to find more of it, but gave up quickly, and started working at getting the base out of the ground to have a look at it.  Venus started probing around, and eventually not only found the rest of the headstone, found the completely intact foot stone.  The child is Lafayette Lawhead, son of Thomas and Mary, died July 19 1827, aged 2 years 6 months and 7 days.  These stones were almost 8 inches below the surface!  The attached picture just doesn't show how deep they were.  I was shocked to say the least.  This was a cool discovery for us, as this is the first find of a complete headstone and footstone, of a never before transcribed person. 

     We also found the base for Mary Henry Lawhead's stone.  It was next to Lafayette's, and also way down deep.  This was pretty rewarding as this stone is one of the original bunch we found in the big pile in the middle of the yard.  All of these discoveries come from that little nub of William Lawhead's stone poking out of the ground."

  

 (Above)

 Lafayette Lawhead's buried gravestone being unearthed.

 (Above)

 Lafayette Lawhead's partial gravestone after removal from the ground

 (Above)

 Gravestone for Mary Henry Lawhead

 

(Above)

 Gravestone for William Lawhead 

(Above)

**Final Result!**

  Mary M. Henry Lawhead and Lafayette her son's gravestones standing tall and -- headstones and footstone in their proper places!

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A parting glance leaving Dean Cemetery for the day -- quiet and content -- looking better than ever!

Thank you for sharing your discoveries with us, Scott and Venus!