![]() ![]() ![]() Maybe everybody just assumes because it looks like one. I wondered out loud about the possibility that it wasn't a grave at all. There was no mention of the second figure or the facial features in her 1968 article. I didn't notice the additional figures myself and I wasn't looking for them, since I spoke with Ms. If there had ever been a face there it is now eroded and indistinct. The surface looked to me like it might have at some time been mauled or defaced. It looked to me like somebody had used that pinkish color to paint over some graffiti. In the picture at top you can see a smear the color of Pepto Bismol. In addition she said there were facial features (possibly a skull?) crudely etched on the east face of the headstone on the rounded part. She also said that there was a second figure similar to the first near the bottom of the headstone. According to Doris' 1968 article, the footstone was missing as well, so the footstone shown here might not be the original. The slab has long ago been removed and possibly used as a headstone for another grave. ![]() Covering a fresh grave with a big slab of rock was sometimes done in frontier days to discourage varmints from digging in the loose dirt and making a gnosh of your late Uncle Bosco. She told me that there used to be a capstone resting like a table top on the three supporting slabs. Joe Smith, the guy you talk to if you want to buy a plot at Fairview, gave me the number of Doris West, who had written an article on the cemetery for the Crawford County Historical Society. ![]() What could that mean? The headstone was crudely carved, but with a pretty obvious right side up. Thing is, if that's a masonic compass and square, it's upside down. The grave is oriented with the headstone to the west and the footstone to the east.Īnybody who doesn't see a compass and square in that mark just isn't looking very hard, particularly contrasting the sharpness of the upper points to the squareness of the arms of the opposing figure. That's the part facing away from the grave. The mark is located just below the rounded portion on the western face of the headstone. If it is hartshorne sandstone, though, those dark regions are iron deposits, which might help explain irregularities in the carving. The material appears to be hartshorne sandstone. Those two upper points are about six inches apart. I've digitally enhanced the photo to make the mark show up better. I guess it's unfair to mention an enigmatic mark without showing it to you, so here it is below right. Then of course whenever you have a stone bearing an enigmatic mark, somebody's bound to bring up the possibility of Vikings, the space-aliens of Arkansas history. Some say it's an Indian grave, possibly the final resting place of a christianized Cherokee. Historians don't think DeSoto came this far up river, so the grave probably doesn't belong to a member of that expedition. That plaque on the footstone notes the local legend that this is the grave of one of DeSoto's men, also mentioning that the carving on the headstone might be a masonic symbol. Van Buren Mystery Grave VAN BUREN MYSTERY GRAVEįairview Cemetery in Van Buren was laid out, so to speak, around this grave, which predates the 1828 founding of the town. ![]()
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