Conrad Geiger Died 1828

"On a Franklin township hilltop stand two  gaunt pines,  green against the snow of winter and looming dark against deepening twilight, grim sentinels watching day and night over a lonely grave. At their feet lies Conrad Geiger, and there he lay when the pines were seedlings, unless they are well over a century old, and they don't look it. The grave is not an unmarked pit, for all the briars and weeds that run wild ever it--and they are so numerous as to obscure either the headstone with it inscription nor the tiny footstone at the very base of the grim evergreen sentinels. A, step away from the grave runs much traveled public- road, but few of the hundreds who have gone that way know the story of the man whose body lies beneath those marble slabs, suitably chiseled. The grave lies along the edge of a field that is farmed to this day.

Within sight are farm houses, and the section is by no means lonely. The loneliness. is reserved for the occupant of the grave, who sought that spot to die. Across the road lies woods, mostly of. young timber and thick brush, but the sentinel pines are the only tall shafts that are reared above the place where the body of Conrad Geiger was found in 1828.
The name of Geiger is still familiar one in Columbia county, and it was equally familiar more than a century ago when Conrad Geiger resided in the home where Samuel Gottschall now. resides and on the same farm where lies the grave. On a day in that year, Giger had trouble with other members of his family. History records that family quarrels are not confined to the generation in which flaming youth causes sage old age to shake its head in wonder at whither youth is going with all its fire. Geiger reached a decision .that has been reached by many others before and since.

He took his gun and left the house: Whether It was fall or winter has passed from recollection of those who know his story, as has the information as to whether shot was heard. Some time later Geiger's was found propped against a stump, the remains of which may no longer be found at the foot of the sentinel pines. Sorrowing hands dug there and deposited in it the mortal remains of Geiger. Years later other hands erected the markers and nature took care of the pines. That is the story of the lonely grave a short distance from the Mount Zion Church and of strange custom that prompted the burying, at that time a century ago, of the victims of suicide at the spots where their bodies were found.

It probably explains lonely graves that have been found now and then in other places in this part of the state, and probably -explains the unmarked graves of some, on the graven stone at the head of the grave, only two chiseled lines are there to tell the story: "Conrad Geiger, Died. 1828."   - The Bloomsburg Morning Press, 1930 & reprinted in 1943

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"One all alone One of the most unusual cemeteries. Hill has listed is the Geiger cemetery. This has only one grave in it. It is the burial site of Conrad Geiger, and the stone reads only, Conrad Geiger Died 1828. Local lore has it that Geiger was found hung from a roadside tree south of Catawissa on Route 487.

Because of the suspicious nature of his death, he was buried right beneath the tree, rather than in a cemetery. At the time there were rigid rules about suicides being buried in hallowed ground, which are now somewhat relaxed. The stone which marks his burial spot is obviously newer than the 1828 date which appears on it."  - The Morning Press, 1979

Mystery grave:

 "More information has been learned about that solitary tombstone near Rohrbach’s farms off Routs 487 thanks to a Texas reader 

Pam Walton of Beaumont Texas whose ancestral ties link her to the Giger clan of Montour Township, passed along church  records shedding more light on Conrad Geiger who died in 1828 and whose stone has become the subject of folksy speculation for years.

 According to an early history of Christ United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Catawissa Conrad Geiger Jr is believed to have committed suicide along the road “from Catawissa to Elysburg’’ and is burled in that place where they found him in 1828. 

 According to church confirmation records Conrad Jr would have been 26 years old at the time. He and his family lived on the Rohrbach farm nearby. Church record shows His father Conrad Sr and Daniel Geiger were twin sons born to Michael Geiger who settled in Catawissa In 1782. Conrad Geiger Sr died in 1835 at the age of 75.

 So now you know."

Press Enterprise, 1993

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Stories From The Cemeteries - 

An Index

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From the Methodist Church [Mt Zion] Church records, Catawissa.

Find all of the church graveyard records here:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-hooded-graves-in-columbia-county-pa.html