Man Unearths 19-Century Headstones

A man in northern Oakland County made a surprising discovery in his back yard recently while he was doing some landscaping work ...

"I cleaned it all off and I turned it around and said, 'Oh my gosh, it's a gravestone,'" said Al Mays.

The retired construction worker said the two headstones are dated from the middle 1800s.

"I thought there were some bones down there. I thought maybe it might have been a grave," Mays said.

But Mays said he found nothing else around the headstones.

The name William E. Turner is inscribed on one of the stones. The other stone's name is missing.

But, there is a Turner family plot in a cemetery that is across the street from where Mays found the headstones.

The city's clerk said she believes vandalism 100 years ago is to blame.

"There were kids who had tied ropes around some of the headstones and with horses would pull the headstones down and break them," said clerk Laura Moreau.

Another piece to the puzzle came during the area's heritage festival.

"We had a woman show up at the counter that afternoon and mentioned she was a relative of E. D. Turner," Moreau said. "So, we were all very shocked by the coincidence."

Moreau said she hopes the woman with the ties to the Turner family will show up again so they could discuss any possible historical connections.

via Man Unearths 19-Century Headstones - Detroit Local News Story - WDIV Detroit.