DAY 29: The One-Acre Wood

This story is at least 60% true.

Years ago, before I knew better, I lived with my girlfriend, trying to make the best of a bad situation.  Shortly after moving into what would be our nicest home, we hosted a gathering for her family, so she could assure them that we were doing well for ourselves.  As the blood relations bonded, I found myself with the inferred duty of hanging out with the other 'guest': some cousin's baby daddy, a boorish man from outside Chicago that was rapidly disenchanting the family.  He was as loud as I was quiet, but we found solidarity in our mutual predicament, and we began to get to know each other.

Like the rest of the family, Chicago was impressed with the neighborhood we had managed to move into: cul-de-sacs of 3 bedroom/2-garages, in the contemporary aspirational-suburban style.  He had lived near the area for a few years, and remembered when the houses were first being built.  After a few hours of good cheer, he decided I was worthy of sharing a secret.  "If you want," he said, "I can show you the slave graves they got hidden at the end of the street.

The end of my street was the only untamed acre in the entire housing development.  Every other lot had been domesticated; if they weren't already a home, they were in some phase of construction.  But there was one lot that was not disturbed.  It was walled with several trees and brush, and even the grass had been allowed to grow taller than men stand.  This forbidden forest was separated from the housing development by yards and yards of grass, a sea of grass.
I had seen the 1-acre wood lots of times, dismissed it as an unclaimed purchase.  But Chicago had another story.  "When I would visit my buddy here, that's where we'd drink.  He showed me the graves; he thought they were left over from when this place was a plantation.  And the owners are never going to be able to sell it... y'know, because of the ghosts."

Chicago's story did not change the family's opinion of him.  However, I was eager to see it for myself. We walked to the end of the street, through the sea of grass, to the edge of the one-acre wood.  The hardest part was finding a way in; the biggest gap in the bramble still required us to hunch over and through for several steps.  The center, by comparison, was pretty clear; dominated by the ceders that grew within, and only stones and tufts of grass beneath them.  Some errant litter, as well, but nothing to suggest that anyone had been here for a long time.
Chicago found his sitting spot and pointed to one of the larger white stones, as long as my shoe, a smooth half dome.  He was looking at the clear side; I walked to the other side, and wiped dirt off the number "1834".
I started to look for other slave graves, which Chicago watched me between sips of his beer, grinning with pride.   I found a partly-submerged gravetop broken in half; other fragments identified two more resting places.  Finally, I found another gravestone.  It had the most to say: "MARQUETTE, JUL 4 1835- JAN 15 1837".

When we got back to the house, I presented my testimony to the assembled family.  They were temporarily amused.  Chicago was satisfied with his tiny vindication, and moved on to his next beer.
But I had to keep digging.  A couple of Internet searches, and some deductive reasoning, filled in a few more blanks about the Marquette family.
The graves were not for plantation slaves; they were for the children of Farmer Marquette.  In the years of the farm's establishment, the Marquette family would lose several children before that generation would take hold and prosper in the region.  Their graves were nameless due to the briefness of their lives; names were gifts bestowed to those who would grow to pass them on.  Instead, these children were given a different gift in their passing.  Their time was carved in stone, their place was marked in the earth, and the relations to follow made that ground sacred, surrendering it to nature and shielding it from the progress and civilization that would swallow up everything else of their era.

I returned alone to that sacred spot several times while I lived in that neighborhood, sharing the secret with few.  Years after I left, I repaid a visit to the one-acre wood, still an undisturbed fortress in its green and yellow sea.  The bramble had grown even thicker; only a child could enter it now, which is probably just as well.


inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Lost Spanish Fort Finally Revealed"