The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-03-01
WILL OPEN VAULTS
SEARCH FOR GEN. GREDNEss BODY
STARTS TODAY.
IN THE OLD BURYING GROUND.
THAT IS WHAT COL. ASA BIRD
GARDINER BELIEVES.

mittec to Prosecute the search,
Arrived Yesterday Morning from
New York-Met and Conferred with
Local Members of the Committee.
Col. Gardiner RcpOses No Conf
dence In Traditions.
The search for the remains of Gen.
Nathaniel Greene will be commenced this
morning. Col Asa Bird Gardiner of New
York, president of the Society of the Gin
cinnad in Rhode Island, arrived in savan-
nah early yesterday morning. He is
chairman of the committee that will d.
rect the search.
Col. Gardiner is stopping at the De
Soto. where he was waited upon last night
by Hon. William Harden and Mr.. Alfred
D. Harden, both of whom are members
of the committee The gentlemen then
| decided they would undertake the search
this morning.
During the afternoon Col. Gardiner, as
| companied by Mr.. P. d. Daffln, chairman
of the Park and Tree Commission; Mr..
Walter G. Charlton and Mr.. Alfred D.
Harden, all of them members of the COM
mittee, visited the Colonial Cemetery on
Oglethorpe avenue, but were unable to
locate the four vaults that stand in
row, one of them, though which cannot
be said, being that in which the remains
of Gen. Greene were inferred in 1856
Hon. William Harden knows the vaults
and can easily point them out to the COM
mittee. He has an old diagram of the
h, In
dcated. No difficulty is anticipated in
readily finding the vaults.
The plan of the committee is to open
the four vaults, one after the other, in
search of the remains. When one has
been opened, it will be entered, and care
full inspection of its contents will be made
in the hope of finding the coffin in which
the body of the Revolutionary general
was inferred The coffin, if found, will be
known by a metal plate. Johnson's life
OF Gen. Greene states positively that the
coffin bore such "A plate, inscribed with
the name of Gen. Greene 1t is further
related that the sword of the General was
buried with him and that the body was
arrayed in the uniform of a major gem
eral in the Continental Army. The but
probably be found intact.
From the vaults, the search failing to
discover that of which the gentlemen are
in quest, the work will be turned to a
plot of ground, about twelve feet by
twelve. lying some twenty or thirty feet
from the vaults. In this plot it is alleged
that the remains were re-interred after
having been removed from the vault in
which they. were originally laid. The au-
w or. SfO iG Mr. A NriC
of Atlanta, some 80 years of age, who
was in Savannah two or three years ago,
and pointed out the plot to Mr.. Otis Ash
more and Hon. William Harden as that
in which the remains of Gen. Greene
might be found.
Common report had it. Mr. Wright de-
clared, when he was a child in Savannah,
that the remains of Gen. Greene were
transferred from the vault to the nearby
ground, new grave being made and a
mound left surmounting it. This plot, the
search of the vaults making no discov-
cry, will be upturned by laborers en-
ployed by Col. Gardiner, through Mr..
Daffin. The Cincinnati of Rhode Island
defray the expense of the search.
So little credence is placed by Col.
Gardiner and the other gentlemen of the
committee in the report that the body of
Gen. Greene lies at Dungeness on Cum
berland Island, that it is improbable that,
no discoveries being made here, the
search will be extended to that place. Col.
Gardiner said last night that he places
not the slightest trust in traditions for
experience has proven to him their frail-
ty. His genealogical researches, as
member of credential committees of the
patriotic societies to which he belongs,
have proven to him that little faith can
De- reposed in traditions. For instance, ne
says, many have submitted applications
for membership in the Society of Cincin-
natl, alleging that some one of their fore
bears was an aide-de-camp to Washing
ton. Now, Col. Gardiner has grown
weary of any such allegation. Washing
ton. he says, had some eight or nine
aides-de-camp during the Revolution, and
sitting the many such applications he has
handled has developed that the ancestor
had merely been an officer of the day,
who, such being Washingtons custom,
had dined with the General.
Many statements and asseverations as
to the body of Gen. Greene lying at
Dungeness have been made, but the fam
lily of Greene and history both deny them
Col. Gardiner is himself a member of the
| Greene family, belonging to a collateral
branch OF the same stock as Gen. Greene
No reason is patent to Col. Gardiner
why the remains should have been trans
ferred to Dungeness. He does not accept
the theory that young George Washing
ton Greene, Gen. Greenes son, who met
an untimely death by drowning in the
savannah river. could have removed the
body, even had he been so inclined. Nor
does the chairman of the committee give
creGence to the report of a slave of Mrs
Mossman, to whom the Grahame estates
confiscated and turned over by the state
TO Gen. Greene, had reverted having Sc
cretly removed the body to some other
portion of the cemetery or to Runaway
Niger creek, into which, one report has
1t, the body was thrown
Mrs. Mossman would not have dared,
Col. Gardiner Thinks, in the face of such
indignation as such an action would have
created, to have the body stolen. None
would have denied her, he thinks, had
she merely requested that the body of
the Revolutionary General be removed
from among those OF her kindred and in
TERED elsewhere. This, the Colonel be-
| lieves, was probably the action she took
ana his theory is that the body lies buried
somewhere near the vault in which il
was originally placed.
Mr.. Alfred d. Harden originated the
movement for the discovery of the burial
| place of Gen. Greene. He entered into
| correspondence with Mr.. Olney. secretary
of the Society in Rhode Island, and this
correspondence resulted in the resolution
| authorizing the search and naming the
| committee to conduct II. Col Gardiner
said he did not know what would be done