Service Day at the Stouffer Farm and Cemetery

This year for Service Day, the History Club is once again participating in an archaeological project at Stouffer Farm and the nearby cemetery. We will be doing this in conjunction with the Oakes Museum and adult learners from Messiah Village Pathways Institute for Lifelong Learning. Some of you may have participated in the "Big Dig" last year, but no matter how familiar you are with the project, we would really love for you to join us!

This year, Service Day is April 19, 2012. To sign up to participate with History Club, please follow this link:

https://apps.messiah.edu/agapecenter/serviceday/registration_all.asp

You will be asked to sign in with your username and password. Then, select "Reserved" from the Project Type drop-down menu. Select "Stouffer Farm and Cemetery Project."

Again, we hope you will decide to join the History Club for Service Day. It always proves to be a good time!

For further information about the project, please see the description pasted below. Any questions are welcome!

Cheers,

The History Club

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This project is a joint session of Messiah College History Club, the Oakes Museum of Natural History, and Messiah Village’s Pathways Institute for Lifelong Learning. The directors and contact people are Dr. David Pettegrew (Dept of History), Ken Mark (Director, Oakes Museum of Natural History), and students Katie Garland and Amanda Mylin (co-presidents of the History Club). Participants will include Messiah College history majors, volunteers associated with the Oakes Museum, and seniors  connected with the Pathways Institute for Lifelong Learning.

Work will occur at two locations: the Stouffer Farm located south of Dillsburg (www.stoufferfarm.wordpress.com) and a nearby cemetery of 18th century date. Participants will contribute to one or both of the following activities: One group of participants will meet at Stouffer Farm from 9:00 a.m. through 3:30 PM. Following a brief discussion about archaeological methods, the morning and early afternoon will be spent carrying out a small-scale excavation. Participants should be prepared to do light shoveling and troweling (on hands and knees), and may elect to attend part of the time. Current research questions center on the function(s) of an outbuilding near the residence and its complicated history.

A second group will conduct preservation work at the Stouffer Cemetery from 9:00 a.m. through 3:30 p.m. Following a brief overview of the preservation project, participants will spend the day recording the cemetery, measuring tomb stones, and filling out paperwork to register the site as a historic landmark. Some participants will excavate small mounds of debris on the edge of a field that have resulted from bulldozing over 30 years ago. In 2011, our teams discovered footstones on the top of these piles. Our goal in 2012 will be to determine whether there are missing headstones and footstones buried in this debris.