Forgotten Souls Find Advocates in Vassar Geophysics Class

Poughkeepsie, NY — Since September Vassar College students have identified over 600 unmarked graves in a long-abandoned county poorhouse cemetery, for a course that not only combines science, technology, and local history but also champions the forgotten dead.

For geology professor Brian McAdoo's "Digital Underground" course Vassar students have been researching roughly 2 acres of overgrown woods that served from 1864 - 1955 as a public burial ground for New York's Dutchess County. The class has inventoried ceramic grave markers numbered as low as 1 and as high as 748 across the cemetery, and they've combed the site with high-tech research equipment to verify where marked and unmarked graves were dug.

What they have not found is either a complete sequence of markers or county records that account for nearly 750 burials, which means that without the Vassar research hundreds of people would lie buried with no indication of their final resting place.

"We want to know exactly how many people are buried here, because the records are incomplete and these are dignified people who should be accounted for," said senior Evan Flugman, an astronomy major.

Professor McAdoo describes "Digital Underground" as a different kind of applied geophysics course, because it incorporates tools from the social sciences – archival research in particular. "The stories unearthed add a human dimension to the physical," he said. In fact, McAdoo brought on local genealogist Virginia Buechele to advise the course, after they discovered their common desire to reclaim the Dutchess County cemetery. Buechele had made a point of meeting McAdoo when she heard that his previous class of "Digital Underground" students had contributed to a similar poorhouse project in nearby Ulster County, just across the Hudson River.

One of the most compelling stories to emerge from the Dutchess County site is of the one headstone the students have found. The fallen marker had become buried under a thin layer of organic matter over the years, and reads, "My Brother, Lewis B. Hubbell, Died, March 14, 1874, Aged 59 Years." The Vassar students have established that Hubbell's parents died by the time he was 10, that he died single, and that his one surviving sibling, a sister, was a missionary in China.

In another case, the "Digital Underground" students have learned that Robert Schofield, an African-American Civil War veteran, walked thirty miles from his home in Beacon, NY to Middletown, NY (across the Hudson River) before finding a regiment that would accept him as a volunteer.

For both the Dutchess and Ulster County projects Vassar students have learned to use an array of advanced scientific tools to map and investigate a burial site without disturbing hallowed ground. In particular a cesium vapor magnetometer, an electrical resistivity meter, and ground penetrating radar have enabled them to hunt for subtle changes in the electromagnetic properties of the earth that indicate where soil was broken to dig a grave.

While the students have verified every finding with one of the geophysical instruments, their eyes and instincts have also become increasingly important tools, especially in leading them to unmarked graves that left little or no visible depression in the ground.

"I am eyeballing these things, and in some cases walking in and around to feel for dips," explained senior Evan Flugman. "Other times I sort of step back and look for patterns, pretty simple ones, rows. It does get tough though. We are working in the woods, and there is not a perfectly manicured lawn out there, that's for sure. So you do have to look through the trees and brush to see the rows a lot of the time, and many times they are on diagonals."

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Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

This article was posted on Thursday, December 4th, 2003.