Underground Railroad: Eden Baptist Church Letterbox Hybrid
Underground Railroad: Eden Baptist Church
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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This is almost a drive-up find, but it is in a churchyard, so no Sunday morning caching unless you want to explain geocaching to a bunch of little old ladies!
Eden Baptist Church was the spiritual center of the community known as PP Settlement. The "PP" is derived from the Sapona Indian word for "small stream". The church was founded in 1824 by former slaves and free persons of color. Some of the families assisted runaway slaves on their journey along the underground railroad to Canada. Thomas Jefferson had two sons by his mistress, the slave Sally Hemings. One of her sons resided at PP and raised his family here, attending services and farming just about a mile straight behind the church. One of his children is buried near here. He himself was a favored architect and builder in the local area, having learned those skills from his father, Thomas Jefferson. One of his finest public buildings is still in operation in Waverly, Ohio, the Emmitt House hotel. The original church building was located just up the road where the Eden Cemetery is now. The current building is the second one, but is older than Uncle Lawrence, who is 97 (and still mows his own lawn!) and attended Eden as a boy, riding one of the work horses with his brother and sisters. Oh, Mom just told me it was built in 1905. Please push the cache deep where you found it and re-camo well. We don't want the groundskeeper to put a hole in it with a weed-eater! Uncle Carl is almost as old as Uncle Lawrence and doesn't see nearly as well! For more information on the role of Pike County in the Underground Railroad (or Underground Road prior to 1860) go to http://www.angelfire.com/oh/chillicothe/ugrr.html or http://www.piketravel.com This is a letterbox hybrid. The carved eraser stamp is NOT a trade item, please leave it in the cache. Edit: Both Uncle Lawrence and Uncle Carl are gone, now, as is my dad. The new building is named for Carl and Dad.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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