But while at first glance this might seem like just another place where a house used to stand, one thing differentiates it from any other foundation I've come across. This one has a gravestone in the middle of it.
The stone belongs to Alice L. who died in 1863 at 11 months and 10 days of age, details which are listed on one side of the gravestone. On the other side is the simple yet loving phrase; Our Alice.
What does it mean that this gravestone stands alone within these walls? My first thought was the obvious one. Most people in the 1800's didn't have much money, which I assumed was the case here, and so I guessed the family buried their infant girl in the basement of their house because they couldn't afford a plot. Then over time the house was destroyed and only the things that were made of stone - the house foundation and the headstone - remained.
That is one possibility, but then the question becomes how could they have afforded the headstone if they had no money?
A second possibility is that the gravestone was maliciously placed in this spot. If you walk about 300 feet deeper into the woods you will find a family graveyard with roughly a dozen gravestones, ranging from small chunks of rock to full-size slabs. Many are toppled or in various states of decay, and the popular theory is that Alice's gravestone was moved from this nearby graveyard to the middle of the foundation. But since the graveyard was cataloged in its current condition 40 years ago, it had to have happened sometime prior to that.
I hate the idea of anyone's gravestone being vandalized, but if that's what happened I'm at least happy that Alice's headstone - perhaps due to its location and the extra attention it's been given - has endured in better condition than many of those remaining in the family's forgotten graveyard.
Our Alice can be found along Tibbets Trail in the Atlantic White Cedar Swamp
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