Maidens Grave #28
Posted by: 
Touchstone
N 38° 37.907 W 120° 10.280
10S E 746225 N 4279712
We pulled a u-turn to grab this one along Hwy 88, and had an unexpected interesting story to read about this misplaced Historical Marker.
Waymark Code: WMFH3
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 06/24/2006
Views: 75
While logging this Waymark, I was going about the business of recording the coordinates, taking pictures and so forth, when my wife pointed out that there is not actually a Maiden buried here at all, but a man!
The historical marker has this one misnamed, but by no fault of the government agency that issues the markers. A small plaque at the grave site explains that the young girl that supposedly that was buried here, was with her family in the mid 1800's and perished during the rugged journey across the mountains. The rest of the family finished the journey and settled in the Central Valley. Some years later, the mother of the young girl went back to find her deceased child to erect a marker there. She came across this grave site and presumed it was her lost child and erected a headstone on the spot and came back on subsequent trips to place flowers on the gravesite.
Fast forward to the 1980-1990's when some individuals found a grave some two miles away, and began to have suspicions that perhaps the mother had found the incorrect spot. They exumed the body of the person at the Maiden grave site, and found that the body there was a male and not a female as presumed. The grave site some two miles away was exumed and found to be that of a young female and was presumed that the disraught mother probably was unaware of the error and just misjudged the location of her missing child.
Thus we have a California Historical Marker that is incorrectly marked. Perhaps the only one of its kind.
Marker Number: 28.00
Marker Name: Maidens Grave
County: Alpine
Has Official CA Plaque: no
Location:
Located along hwy 88.
Marker Dedication Date: Not listed
Website: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:
Feel free to post a picture of you at the landmark site, but a photo is not required to log a visit.