Sunken Cemetery Options

[Shep]

Great thread. Very interesting.

[makowish]

Need to dive this before weed growth is out of hand.

[Kent0242]

I just read this thread for the first time... VERY interesting!! Great job on the research and the articles and pictures!

I am curious too what caused the lake levels to go up so much, and then be stable for the next ~100 years. I've heard of there being years where the water was very, very low, but I would think the edges would be pretty swampy and not really suitable for building on. Makes me wonder if that area out north of the Clinton River inlet was also dry land at some point too.

I grew up in Harrison Township and the local history points to the fact that there was a town at the mouth of the Clinton River called Belvedere, or perhaps Belvidere. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the town was occupied as long as the waters stayed low, but when the waters came up, the residents would move into Mount Clemens.

The areas of Mount Clemens and Harrison Township (including Selfridge ANG Base) have a history of flooding. The lower parts of Mount Clemens surrounded by the Clinton River would regularly flood in the springtime. Relief was finally realized in the 1950s when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers installed the Clinton River Spillway.

In the early 1970s, we had to sandbag much of Harrison Township because of high water levels. 5 years earlier, I remember being able to walk on dry riverbed in the Clinton River, as the water hit its low water mark.

I watched the Corps of Engineers water level charts and at that time, there seemed to be a 10 year cycle of high water and low water marks. I have seen more recent writings by the Corps of Engineers which calls out a longer cycle of 12 or 15 years for the Great Lakes.

Hope this helps!!

[NuclearFishin]

What a cool thread. I've lived in SE Michigan since 1980 and never heard of this.