The Berne Historical Project at www.Bernehistory.org has a project underway to restore the late 18th Century Pine Grove Cemetery, Berne, Albany County. It was a small, rural, church cemetery that continued in use for almost a century. A couple of youngsters who were probing for fallen and covered over tombstones found what appear to be the base stones for a pedestrian gate. At first they were assumed to be tombstone bases, but no tombstones were found. Also these stones are roughly parallel the east west road-frontage, about the distance back from the road that a fence would be; where as the tombstones all face east, so the bases are north south. The stones are oblong, large, and heavy, laying inches apart placed end to end. They each have 2 circular holes about 18" apart and about 1 and 1/2 " wide. One of the holes has the broken off stub off a rusted iron rod embedded in it. They are crudely cut, rather then finished stone. Here is there symbolic appearance: [ o o ] [ o o ] It is assumed that they were found in their original location. If so, the gate would have been quite narrow. It has been proposed that the gate was designed with 4 posts tied together at the top but not necessarily with an arch. Two of the posts probably supported a latched gate to keep livestock out of the cemetery the other two braced the gateway from tipping and leaning. I'm interested in what others might make of these stones. If it was a gate, does anyone have photos of cemetery gates of this size that might give us an idea of what it looked like? I can e-mail digital photos of the stones and the context in which they were found if anyone is interested. Harold Miller Berne Historical Project www.Bernehistory.org Please reply to [log in to unmask] rather than this address. _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail