INDIANA SPIRIT
QUEST
Photos by Rupert2
The Indiana Spirit Quest series of
geocaches will take you to a number of historic cemeteries
built by Hoosier Pioneers. In a little over year, the quest has
grown to over a hundred sixty caches hidden in ninteen Indiana
counties, and the hiders have grown to five cacher teams, four of
which are comprised of A Man and His Dog...
PRAIRIEPARTNERS has set a record for
one-day ISQ finds on 10-16-2004 at 55! 187 cacher teams have
logged over 2,018 finds.
INDIANA SPIRIT
QUEST #165
”Little Black Fences"
Welcome to Ritchie Woods Nature Preserve (NOT A DNR
PROPERTY), Delaware Township, Hamilton County. Ritchie Woods
is a State DESIGNATED Nature Preserve owned and operated by the
Town of Fishers and the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Please
park in the lot on the west side of Hague Road. The north half
(approximately)is is a nature preserve so please respect all park
rules and stay on the marked trails. POSTED HOURS ARE FROM DAWN TO
DUSK, PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT AT NIGHT. THERE IS NO NEED TO EVER
LEAVE THE TRAIL TO FIND OR LOG THIS CACHE. The round trip hike
should be less than .5 miles. The cache is located approximately 40
feet from the cemetery. This little four marker gradeyard has no
name and appears on no local maps to my knowledge. I went searching
for it after discovering a notation in the Hamilton County Cemetery
layer of the county GIS. I was very pleased to discover the
provided trails take you directly to the
site.
All markers are worn to the point of being
illegible, although it does appear that someone has attempted to do
some preservation work.
The following information has been provided by
the RWNP staff: "Mike Kroger, a local eagle scout, placed the fence
and gate and did some reserach for me. Here is the history I have
on it: This cemetery is believed to be the cemetery for the Osborn
family. They moved to Hamilton County in 1835, from Ohio. They
farmed on the area that is now part of Ritchey Woods. The family
included Ebenezer, his wife Hannah, and their nine children Aaron,
Joseph, Harmon, Mahala, Benjamin, John, Mary, and Anna. They
occupied this land until Ebenezer’s death in September of 1860. It
is believed that he, his wife Hannah, eldest daughter Harmon, and
first child Aaron are all buried in this cemetery, yet it is not
known for sure because the stones’ writing has faded
away.
During this time period it was common for the
graves to be positioned at an east/west orientation. The settlers’
feet would be positioned toward the east and their heads to the
west so they could rise up and face the new day when their bodies
were resurrected. As you can see this orientation was used in this
cemetery.".
The cache
container is is a small white tube. Again, THERE IS NO NEED
TO LEAVE THE TRAIL TO FIND THIS CACHE. Please be aware of
muggles while attempting to locate this cache. Please
leave it at least as well concealed, if not better, than you
found it. If you find the coordinates to be a little
off, do not hesitate to post a waypoint with your log.
As always, be respectful, and cache in, trash out. God Bless
our troops in harm's
way.
WARNING: FIND LOGS ON THIS CACHE THAT INDICATE
NIGHT CACHING WILL BE DELETED WITHOUT
NOTICE!
"Indiana Spirit Quest" is brought to you by
The
SixDogTeam, Kodiak Kid, THE SHADOW, Team Shydog and
Rupert2.