toledoblade.com --

The Spafford bones are back in Perrysburg, packed in boxes and wrapped in unanswered questions.

City Administrator Jim Bagdonas said they are now in city hands, but he refused to say where they are being kept. They are, he said, months from being laid to rest.

The bones are teeth, skulls, and several "nonhuman remains" that comprised some of Perrysburg's earliest white settlers. Their graves date to 1815.

They were disinterred by accident more than a year ago by construction workers near the new Fort Meigs State Memorial Park Visitors' Center.

The remains were taken by Ohio Historical Society excavators to Columbus, where Ohio State University anthropology students analyzed and studied them. The bones belonged to seven people, the scientists reported, two or three of them children. The find included silver coffin hinges, a tortoiseshell hair ornament, and fancy shoe buckles.

On Nov. 12, the anthropologists shipped the remains back to Perrysburg.

Mr. Bagdonas said he plans to write to Spafford relatives in Perrysburg and Maumee to see what they want to do with the remains. "It's up to them, really," he said, "but as the ultimate owners, the city is being respectful of the remains as long as they're in our custody. They're being kept on city premises. They're not in a warehouse or a garage. They are safe."

The bones belong to the city, as they were unearthed beneath a city-owned street. Since news of the secretive grave-opening went public early this year, planners from Perrysburg's Ohio Bicentennial committee said they hope to bury the bones as part of a May celebration that includes a Spafford reunion at Fort Meigs. Now, the group says it will settle for installing a memorial plaque at the park.

The problem is identity, said local history buff and committee member Judy Justus.

"We can't figure out exactly who they are, or were," she said. "We can't rebury them as Spaffords if we can't prove that's who they are. People from other families were buried there too. Several families lived in the area. We could find out more with DNA testing, but it would cost about $2,500 to have that done. [The Bicentennial committee] doesn't have that kind of money. I haven't pursued it. I don't want to raise a ruckus."

She said she does not know where the bones are now, but in the past she said a local funeral director agreed to help "oversee their safekeeping."

Ted Charter, a member of Sons of the American Revolution who lives in Marion, Ohio, said he'll start a ruckus straightaway. As a Spafford descendent, he said some of those bones may be tied to him, and he said he has never been contacted by any authority for his opinion.

"How can our [Historical Society] ship these body parts around and not tell the families related to them? It's not right. It's beyond belief, really.

"Even if they aren't Spaffords, they are some of the founding families of this area," he said. "They provided us with the Wood County and Perrysburg we have today. We owe those remains more respect. I want to see closure, and soon. ... I'm appalled that my ancestors - our ancestors, are being treated this way."

Future options for the past Perrysburgers include a grave in the Fort Meigs Union Cemetery, bought by the city in accordance with a law that requires towns to bury unknown transients who die within city limits. The Fort Meigs State Memorial Park includes dozens of military graves, and some expressed desire to bury the remains there, or near where they were dug up.

"But the city doesn't own that land," the administrator said. "There might be problems, burying them where there's no established cemetery."

Also unanswered are questions raised by prehistoric Native American remains unearthed at the fort and taken to Columbus at about the same time as the pioneer bones. Society spokesman Michael Ring said the Fort Meigs Indian remains are being inventoried, in accordance with federal laws regarding Native American burials. So far, no plans have been announced on their final destination.

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