Dust To Dust

The area we are exploring today was never much of a community and never really well populated. Today there are probably even fewer people. But at one time, for an unknown period of time, there was a church here.

When it started, when it ended, and when it was destroyed or removed is not clear. But based on the handful of mentions of it I could find, I would guess it was in use before the Civil War and abandoned sometime after 1900. It may have been a Methodist church.
Beyond that, there are no records. No membership rolls, rarely any mentions in the newspapers, and not even a building foundation. All that remains is part of the old graveyard, now surrounded by land that varies from plowed fields to dirt roads. From dust to dust.

I would estimate there are likely about 20-30 burials here with about half that visible. Some worked stone, some fieldstones. There are about 3 or 4 surnames on the marked stones and this leads me to believe this church was really small.
One mention I was able to find is for a funeral which took place at the church around 1900. That person was not buried here though, but at a family cemetery a few roads over. The last mention of it I can find is an obituary for one of the marked stones, and the way it describes the church makes me think it was not in use at that time.
The whole thing is a mystery that will probably never be solved.

Because of the nature of this cemetery and it’s location I am choosing not to identify it and have kept some photos from the site due to identifying names. I was also rather disturbed to see that someone had shot (either accidentally or on purpose) one of the larger more legible stones. While I was taking these pictures there were the sounds of black powder rifles being fired in the woods down the way. I couldn’t help but flinch when I heard them.