Diver dredges through mud in search of Evans City gravestones
EVANS CITY — Gravestones from the 1830s used to sit north of the Route 68 bridge in Forward Township, but they have been missing for about 50 years.
Evans City Historical Society officials suspect people dropped them into the Connoquenessing Creek channel below the bridge in the 1960s or 1970s.
Enter Braden Sarver, a diver with EnviroScience who is originally from Evans City. Sarver travels the nation with his diving gear to search bodies of water mainly for research and surveying purposes, but returned to his hometown in late-May to help the historical society seek the stones.
The section of channel Sarver searched turned out to be more muddy than watery, but he managed to find some fragments of stone that appeared to be intentionally carved. The fragments are now at the Evans City Historical Society, and Sarver is planning to return for a larger search of the channel this summer.
“I wasn’t really doing any diving; I did bring some equipment out. It was less swimming around and more digging through the mud,” Sarver said. “We started poking around and digging by hand just under the surface of the water and we found three stones.”
Evans City Mayor Dean Zinkhann said he prompted the search and recruited Sarver to help in the effort. As Zinkhann explained, the gravestones belonged to some of the original residents of Evans City, the Gillilands. Zinkhann is also a board member for the Evans City Historical Society.
Prior to the search of the channel, Zinkhann and Sarver spoke with people who live near it on Ash Stop Road and Kohler Lane, which led them to Shane Rhoades, whose grandmother had documented the names on the gravestones before they were lost. Rhoades said she may have written them down in the 1960s, or possibly prior to then.
The gravestones, according to Rhoades’ grandmother, included Barnet Gilliland, who died Oct. 24, 1845; Magaret Gilliland, who died Aug. 28, 1890; Nancy G. Gilliland, who died Feb. 23, 1830; and Adam Gilliland, who died July 19, 1843.
Zinkhann said the family settled in Evans City after being paid in land for being in the military, according to research the historical society has done. He said he remembered seeing the gravestones as he was growing up.
“They were given land, depreciation land in the service,” Zinkhann said. “I grew up in the area, in Ash Stop, and I remember seeing them out there and I often wondered what happened to them.”
The channel is two feet of water and probably four feet of mud, according to Sarver. Zinkhann said it was cut off from Connoquenessing Creek so railroads could cross it without having to build a bridge. From overhead, the channel takes the shape of a horseshoe. Sarver and company searched for the gravestones in the northern part of the water.
Joyce Beahm, vice president of the Evans City Historical Society, also explained water remains in the channel today because of the elevation of the land.
“They cut the Connoquenessing off because it was so windy ... and rerouted it,” Beahm said. “And it left these little bodies of water that were just laying there because they were the lowest points.”
A newsletter from the historical society notes the Gillilands had a family cemetery on their farm, and Beahm said people at the time were typically buried at the highest point of a property.
Sarver presented the stone fragments to the Evans City Historical Society after the May 26 search. Zinkhann pointed out that even as fragments, the retrieved stones look like part of old gravestones because they are flat on at least one side.
“This one definitely is probably part of the tombstone,” he said. “It looks intentionally carved.”
Sarver said the stones he retrieved from the channel are the most promising examples he found in his search, but he and the Evans City Historical Society are not completely certain they are the missing gravestones. However, he said the next search he conducts will include more community involvement to cover more ground at once.
Certain parts of the channel are on private property, so the searches will only take place in parts the public has access to.
“It is suggested by my boss here at EnviroScience to do a community day,” Sarver said, “and get people together to come down and get five or six of us at most to continue searching for these tombstones.”
On Monday, June 1, Sarver was on the job helping to conduct a mussel survey in the Maumee River, which is just south of Toledo, Ohio. He said the work he does as a diver is enjoyable and even though the channel search involves more dredging than it does diving, it’s still a job he is happy to do.
“I love it. I absolutely love it,” Sarver said about his diving job. “We’ve worked on power plants, dams, lochs, all over the place, the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. So I am very well-versed in digging around the mud.”
The Evans City Historical Society has the retrieved stones in its office at 204 S. Jackson St. in Evans City.
