This old forgotten cemetery sits up on a hill not far from the parking lot for the Hamlin Lake beach in Ludington State Park. Long before the area was a state park it had a sawmill town called Hamlin. It was founded in 1852 by lumberman Charles Mears. He built a wooden dam on the Big Sable River and the town continued to prosper until the dam broke in 1888.
I shared this photo as part of a presentation about a year ago and it was after that an older gentleman came up to me. He told me that he was a ranger at Ludington State Park in the 60s and that an old coffin had washed up onto the banks of the Big Sable River near the mouth at Lake Michigan. From the age of the coffin and corpse, they figured it was someone from the old town of Hamlin who was buried next to the river. He told me they re-buried it in the old cemetery on the hill. I have never been able to confirm the story with a newspaper article but I have no reason to doubt what he told me.
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