Welcome to Livingston County’s Bicentennial GeoTrail!
My name is Find R. Fox. I’ll be your guide to super-sleuthing the hides at these amazing, historical locations all around our beautiful 200-year-old county!
To make your travel through history a bit easier, imagine yourself in a Time Machine (your best mode of transportation will do). Set the dial (your gps unit) to the first year (coordinates) listed below, check the waypoints for Parking and push the navigate button! Whirl your way there then switch your coordinates as needed to navigate to the geocache to sniff out the container and sign the log sheet. Good Luck & Enjoy the journey!!
As the name might suggest, this is a cemetery cache. Daylight hours only.
The Rau Cemetery, located in central Sparta, is an old burial ground where at least 75 known Sparta residents are interred. Gravestones dating from the 1820s stand near markers from 1896 and 1909, designating the most recent burials, now over 100 years old.
In the 1850s, a wall map shows a Methodist Episcopal church on the west side of the cemetery, but no other information is available.
The Clarks, Traxlers, Raus, and Clemons families established farms and homes around the area and when they died, many were laid to rest in the Rau Cemetery. The cemetery is maintained by the Town of Sparta.
Many cemeteries were placed on hilltops, because the souls were then closer to heaven, which was the inspiration for the geocache name.
Old school
Pass through the gates, and then put your back to them, at an angle.
Walk straight ahead, uphill.
Stop and sigh HI to someone we all know and (hopefully) love.
Turn towards HILL and walk that direction.
The bottom of that cross (J n K) points to cache, about 15 feet past headstones.
New school
Start with the Eagle Scout project listing the graves, use LAST NAMES for answers. (Note, there is a bench on which to sit, should you need that after gathering your information.)
H = Benjamin, 2nd letter
A = Isaac, 4th letter
V = Emily, 3rd letter
E = John M, 1st letter
N = Jane, 1st letter
S = Rhoda R, 3rd letter
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
There is a stamp that represents an object that one might bring to a cemetery to honor a loved one.
REMINDER: Neither the stamp nor the stamp pad are items to take or trade. They are here for the letterbox.
This cache is 1 of 36 caches comprising the Livingston County Bicentennial GeoTrail (LivCo200) placed in the summer of 2021 in honor of Livingston County’s Bicentennial by members of the local geocaching group called the Bee Hive. For more information about Livingston County’s Bicentennial, visit the County Historian’s Bicentennial web page on the Livingston County New York website at https://www.livingstoncounty.us/1115/County-Bicentennial
