Several headstones found in Donegal culvert
Shane Moore of West Alexander found tombstones along Shaler Road in Donegal Township.
Shane Moore points to tombstones along Shaler Road in Donegal Township.
Shane Moore of West Alexander stands Monday next to tombstones he found along Shaler Road in Donegal Township.
Shane Moore was riding high Saturday. Literally.
“I have a big farm truck, and I sit up higher,” he said, recounting what, until then, had been an uneventful early-afternoon commute along Shaler Road near his Donegal Township home.
From his lofty perch, he glanced down at a culvert and saw something the casual driver couldn’t see – and few commuters ever see outside a cemetery.
“These gravestones were sticking out,” Moore said.
He and a friend returned a little later, examined the premises and found chunks of roadway along with several headstones.
They and township officials were mystified as word spread about the macabre discovery, and as speculation mounted about how the stones got there – and who was responsible.
Moore and his friend also may have unleashed another mystery. One marker, with parts of several letters worn away, bears the name “G. Duffield Marshall” and the dates “1860-1896.”
An online search found that a G. Duffield Marshall, 1860-1895, is interred in Valley Cemetery in Imperial, Allegheny County. (A telephone call to the cemetery was not returned.)
Moore, who has visited the culvert several times in the past few days, said “it looks like somebody used (the headstones) as fill” at the site. He added the culvert is off a township-maintained road, and heavy rains recently may have caused enough erosion to unveil the stones.
Police Chief John Yancosek said the findings were reported to his department Monday morning and that “we are looking into it.”
Supervisor Doug Teagarden said Monday morning the municipality has launched an investigation. “We’re meeting with employees to see if this happened on our watch. This certainly came as surprising news to us.”
Asked whether a township road crew member or members may have placed the gravestones there, Teagarden said: “It’s certainly nothing we authorized. We wouldn’t advocate using headstones even if they were unused or came from a factory.
“I don’t think our current road guys would do that. I can’t speak for ones in the past.”
Moore said that culvert was “washed out” some years ago, then filled in by the township.
He and his friend, who requested anonymity, were intrigued by what they saw Saturday. The unidentified man, also from Donegal, shot video of the site. At least three headstones were visible.
Teagarden chuckled mildly as he recalled, “This is not the first headstone caper this community has had.”
He said 50 or 60 years ago, a cemetery next to the municipal offices was declared abandoned by court order, and that “every once in a while, stones (from that cemetery) turn up” somewhere else.
And about 40 years ago, Teagarden added, “the mayor of West Alexander was involved in a case where a headstone was used as a steppingstone at a house or shop. The mayor confiscated the stone and the case ended up in Washington County Court, which ordered it to be returned (to the appropriate cemetery).”
Headstones can be at the center of unusual occurrences, but Shane Moore is not laughing these days. What he saw in the culvert near his home Saturday kept him awake that night and nags him still.
“This really bothered me,” he said. “What good Christian would do that?”