Recently our friends took me on my first trip to Put-in-Bay, Ohio. Put-in-Bay is located on South Bass Island, one of the Lake Erie Islands. Put-in-Bay was the port from which Oliver Hazard Perry sailed to fight in the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812, and there is a large monument on the island to that which I will address in another post. Since Victorian times, South Bass Island and specifically the village of Put-in-Bay have been a popular summer tourist destination, with a much smaller year round population. The island has two cemeteries, Crown Hill being the older one, often referred to as “the island cemetery” in the exhibits at the Lake Erie Islands Historical Society museum.
The historical society also had a valuable resource – a map of the cemetery with the family plots marked out and the name of the plot owner, other people known to be buried in the plot, and the others’ relationship to the owner. The map makes the cemetery look less than full, but the historical society museum hostess told us that the unmapped plots are full as well – of the unidentified bodies that washed up on the island shores. The island weather has not been particularly kind to the old stones in this cemetery, and a much larger proportion of them than I am used to were unreadable.
A Grave Concern 