April 7, 1892  Middletown Signal Weekly. Middletown, Ohio

Disturbing the Sleep of the Dead

    The river is very high and the waters are ravaging the old cemetery south of the city at an alarming rate.  In the past twenty four hours a strip the length of the cemetery and ten feet in width has been washed away and beyond doubt, bodies have been carried off by the mad flood.  It seems that it is the duty incumbent upon our citizens to remove the remains of the bodies interred in this place.  A number of them were Middletown’s first inhabitants, and their efforts in the infant’s behalf did much to push it forward as one of the most thriving cities in the Miami.

  In view of their services in by gone days, our neglect to give them internment in a safe spot seems ill-respect to the memories of our city’s founders.  When the cemetery was visited this afternoon the ground covering a grave from which the body had never been removed, was parted in large cracks and ere long the body will be in the water.

April 14, 1892     Middletown Signal Weekly, Middletown, Ohio
 A  find in the Old Cemetery
    Otto and Frank Dell and Mr. Martindale were in the old cemetery below the city Sunday afternoon.  It will be remembered that the recent floods have been cutting into the burying ground.  While the gentlemen were in the place a large bank caved in and they observed that the remains in a grave had been exhumed and in a short time would fall into the water.  They quickly secured the remains in the grave and found that the body had been intered [sic] there had been that of a babe.  The cranium was all that remained, the trunk and extremities having decayed.  The skull however was well preserved and had one small tooth in the jaw bone.

April 21, 1892     Middletown Signal Weekly, Middletown, Ohio
Open Graves
    The river is still making its ravages on the old grave yard south of the city.  A great number of people visited the place yesterday where the ghastly remains of persons who were buried years ago are exposed to view.  The graves are being washed out and the bones lie bleaching in the sun or are carried to the sea by the tide.  One grave which was washed open exposed the head and body still intact and clinging to the grave, the very outlines of the grave are shown where many years ago the old grave digger had made a bed for a weary traveler whose race was run.  Above this corpse loved ones wept, and with bleeding hearts stood round they grave.  But they too have passed away and the remains they laid in the grave are exposed to view by the mighty waters, and carried on the waves to the mighty ocean.  A young M. D. of this city secured some of the bones for his cabinet.

August18, 1892     Middletown Signal Weekly, Middletown, Ohio
VICE AND SHAME
The Old Graveyard South of the City a Rendezvous for the Vicious
To the editor of the Signal:  
  The people on Fifth street west of Main are expressing themselves in very emphatic language on the actions of certain parties who gather in the old churchyard south of the city where rests the remains of the oldest inhabitants, and make the place a rendezvous for all that is immoral.
  Here, in the afternoons, drunken brawls are the order of the day, and drunkenness and licentiousness reign at night.  Even the young and innocent are enticed from the pat of rectitude.  A little boy was given intoxicants a few day since, and became so drunk that he had to be stowed away in a shed.
  The orgies down there around a beer keg, where libertine and harlot mingled in revelry and sin, have aroused the indignation of the neighborhood, and they are about to make it extremely interesting.
  But a few nights ago there were a number of men and women there indulging in actions that were extremely vicious.
  Men with other men’s wives, women with other women’s husbands, the licentious and vicious, make this a retreat that should receive the attention of the officers.  A raid on this gang would expose one of the vilest cancers that is eating the life out of the morality of the town.