At the request of Crown Point Road Association an expert on ground penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetometry, Doria Kutrubes spent two days in Pittsford and Proctor recently looking for clues of an old burial ground and of the Crown Point Road itself.

The first was at the location of the old Hopkins burying ground on Florence Road. Many stories have been told regarding this section of pasture located today at the Frank Bovey farm very near the three “fragments of a large boulder” visible from the highway on the east side of Florence Road. That the plot was once a burial ground is discussed in a story in the History of the Town of Pittsford by A. M. Caverly, published 1872, and by owners previous to the Boveys. Previous owners were said to have never plowed there because of the long-held understanding that unknown persons had been buried there, and the Boveys, likewise, have not plowed it.

Pittsford’s History says members of Waters, Sheldon, Lake, Mead and Stevens families, and perhaps others, were interred there, with the last burial in 1803. The headstones were removed by a property owner (perhaps G. and L. Hendee in the 1870s) after James Hopkins owned it, according to the History.

Before Kutrubes’ arrival, Jim Moore, CPRA treasurer Jim Rowe, CPRA President and member Jim Purdy had previously laid out the Frank Bovey pasture in ten-foot rows, 100 feet wide and long, with a flag every 4 feet. The area is also in the vicinity of the Crown Point Road, built by General Amherst’s men in 1759 and 1760 that traveled from Fort #4 in Charlestown NH, to Crown Point NY. The road crossed Otter Creek at Pitt’s Ford, somewhere near here.

Ms Kutrubes, of Waltham MA, president and senior geophysicist, of Radar Solutions international (RSI) went over the ground three times Friday and Saturday, each time probing deeper with her equipment. Results are not in, but the first run with the GPR focused attention to some disturbance in the ground in the area nearest to the road, and the next day’s run with the magnetometer, then GPR with a bigger antenna may have confirmed these disturbances.

Second, after the two-day scans of the burying ground property, Kutrubes and her helper Washington Kilpatrick of Ayer MA went to work on what is believed to have been the route of the 1759 Crown Point Road at the end of Eden Avenue in Proctor. According to Jim Moore, owner of the property and CPRA Treasurer, “we spent the afternoon laying out cross sections and running both the mag and GPR on the road and stonework that cuts down through the hollow, hoping to get more information on construction techniques and age of that section of road.”

Results and conclusions will come in the early part of June, and Radar Solutions International (www.radar-solutions.com) will be returning to Vermont for further research.

There were many participants in the weekend activities. Friday evening local people were invited to a pot luck supper and a presentation of GPR and magnetometry by Kutrubes at the Proctor Library.

College senior Heather Moore of Proctor got quick tutorials on both machines and was able to walk some of the grid with Kutrubes and Kilpatrick taking notes.

Elaine and Jim Purdy of Rutland, Nancy Kennedy and Amy Moore of the Proctor Historical Society, and Emerson Frost of the Pittsford Historical Society were also present. Bill Powers, a local historian now researching Fort Vengeance was an interested observer. CPRA president Jim Rowe of Huntington aided in laying out the grids.

(Text and photographs by Rebecca W Tucker, CPRA Secretary, 802-885-486 rwctucker@comcast.net )

Figure 1 Part of Frank Bovey’s pasture is laid out in grid pattern in readiness for ground penetrating radar scanning. (Photo by RW Tucker)

Figure 2 Doria Kutrubes of Waltham MA, president and senior geophysicist of  Radar Solutions international (RSI) and Washington Kilpatrick, pace the grid in the Frank Bovey pasture, pulling the GPR antenna behind them. (Photo by RW Tucker)

Figure 3 Kutrubes, helper Washington Kilpatrick of MA and “River,” scan the Bovey farm pasture area, while CPRA’s Jim Moore scythes the numerous buttercups in the background. (Photo by RW Tucker)

Figure 4 The dog “River,” Washington Kilpatrick and Doria Kutrubes of Radar Solutions International, Waltham MA scan the Frank Bovey pasture in Pittsford looking for disturbances in the ground. The Crown Point Road Association invited RSI to do the research

Figure 5 Florence Road in Pittsford passes by the Frank Bovey pasture where RSI people scanned the area with ground penetrating radar machine (GPR) where the old Hopkins burying ground is said to have been located. (Photo by RW Tucker)

Figure 6 Shadows grow long as the RSI GPR team reaches the end of its first of three scans of the 100 by 100-foot grid in the Frank Bovey pasture on Florence Road in Pittsford, where the old Hopkins burying ground is said to have been located. (Photo by RW Tucker)