Terra Vista

Rusty cars/trucks, disintegrating farm implements, old cemeteries, overgrown hiking trails, stone foundations - if any of this stuff peaks your interest you should check out the Terra Vista Site in the Cuyahoga Valley. The Park considers the site historical for its remains of an Early Woodland Indian village - a 1975 excavation found many artifacts. You would have to be with an expert to identify what they consider the Indian Village though - plowing, mining, and vandalism have seriously damaged the site.

I was more interested in the old cemetery - which is known as Tinker's Creek Cemetery, Old Indian Cemetery, Hillside Cemetery, Pilgerruh Cemetery and Terra Vista Cemetery. Pilgerruh, which is German for “Pilgrim’s Rest,” was a name that came from a brief Moravian settlement in the area - but most the graves are from the Canal Era and there is supposedly a unmarked mass grave of Irish Canal workers too. It seems as if an illness must have swept the area in 1844 because many of the tomb stones are from this date - regardless of family. Only a 1/5 of of the burials listed for the site still have grave markers.

We also found the remnants of someones farm/back yard. There where various farm implements, an old truck sinking into the ground, and most amazingly a late 50's Mercury in a collapsed garage.

We didn't pass another person on our hike and the trail sometimes becomes hard to locate - in other words a great hiking spot...

hiking

remnants of an old truck

old Mercury in old garage