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As if it isn’t strange enough for someone to find a creepy tombstone from the 1800s buried in your yard, it got even weirder for a man who discovered exactly that recently when he saw what was inscribed on it.
“Found a tombstone while digging out a pond in my backyard…” the man wrote in a post on Reddit alongside a photo of the grave marker which was cracked in half.
It turns out that birth date of the person named on the tombstone was also the same as his: January 26th.
He reports that he came across this unexpected relic while digging up his garden to make a pond.
After a little digging (pun intended) by internet sleuths on Reddit, it was discovered that the grave marker belonged to a man named John Cunningham was who born on January 26, 1800 in Maryland, and died on June 29, 1866 in Springettsbury Township, Pennsylvania.
Wait, it gets even weirder.
One Reddit sleuth uncovered the following information…
“John Cunningham, born January 26, 1800 in Maryland (or possibly Pennsylvania), died in Springettsbury on June 29, 1866, and buried in Mount Zion Cemetery on June 30th,” they wrote.
“On May 17,1832, he married Elizabeth Spangler, who was born in 1812 and died in 1883, at Christ Lutheran Church. She is buried next to him at Mount Zion. They had 6 children – William, Susannah, George, Eli, David, and Elizabeth.
“He was a Lutheran, and attended the Trinity Reformed Church (now known as the Trinity United Church of Christ). He was a farmer, and in 1860 he lived in a house valued at $7,200 which was located in the Spring Garden Township area of York.
“It is believed that the image below is a current picture of their house. Eli took over the farm, and Elizabeth lived with him in 1870, then lived with her daughter Elizabeth in 1880 until she died in 1883.
“He has quite a few living relatives today who, I’m sure, would be very interested in this relic.”
That house the internet detective referred to in an attached photo?
“Hey I know where this house is! It’s right down the street from my house I pass it everyday on the way to work,” the person who found the tombstone replied. “That’s so interesting! Thank you!”
Just imagine what John Cunningham would have thought in the 1800s if someone had told him that he would be talked about dozens, if not hundreds, of by people on the internet 81 years after he died.