The Caged Graves

Coming from Clarion

In 1867, seventeen-year-old Verity Boone returns to her hometown, where "the dead don't always stay where you put them", to marry a young man she's met only through letters. 

This unpromising engagement is complicated by another suitor and by her family's entanglement with a legendary treasure, as well as the persistent dark rumors about her mother ~ who ended up buried in a caged grave.

The Caged Graves is a historical mystery inspired by two very real graves in the town of Catawissa, Pennsylvania.

These are pictures I took of the two graves when I first encountered them in January 2010.

The grave of Asenath Thomas, wife of John Thomas.

She died in 1852.

The grave of Sarah Ann Boone, wife of Ransloe Boone.

She died within a few days of Asenath

and was the sister of Asenath's husband, John.

The purpose of the cages is unknown.  They may have been decorative, 

although no other cages were erected here or anyplace else.

They may have served as protection.

But -- for whom?

The dead ... or the living?

We may never know the real story behind these two intriguing graves,

but I owe Asenath and Sarah Ann thanks

for inspiring the story of my very own Verity Boone.

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