Norwich - Famed 19th-century abolitionist David Ruggles might indeed be buried in the Ruggles family plot in Yantic Cemetery.



Radar shows three unmarked graves, but whether one of those is the final resting place of David Ruggles would take more historical research and possibly excavation and DNA testing - if there are remains that could still be tested.



On Nov. 9, a team of soil specialists accompanied State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni and members of the local Freedom Trail Committee to the plot in the cemetery on Lafayette Street.



The group had asked Bellantoni to study whether David Ruggles could be buried in the mostly unmarked family plot just inside the main entrance. Using ground-penetrating radar, soil survey leader Deborah Surabian and Marybeth Holer, a volunteer with a group called Earth Team, combed the plot with a device resembling a small lawn mower.



In a report on the findings, Surabian said results show that three areas of "anomalies" consistent with grave sites were found in a straight line behind two marked Ruggles graves, his mother Nancy and niece Sarah, and in line with his brother Felix's grave.



"The layout of this cemetery plot has the burials laid in a north-south direction with paths running east/west that provide access to the individual plots," Surabian wrote. "Knowing the pattern of this plot and interpreting the anomalies in the radar record as a cemetery plot suggest that there may be additional burials in this survey area. These three anomalies may be deemed worthy of further attention by archaeologists."



Bellantoni said unless local research confirms that Ruggles is buried in the plot, there's no way of knowing scientifically without excavation and DNA testing whether any of the grave sites is that of David Ruggles.



"According to the radar, there are clearly three unmarked graves there," Bellantoni said. "Who they are will take some sleuthing. The only way to make a positive identification is by excavation."



City Historian Dale Plummer, a member of the Freedom Trail Committee, hopes to determine whether Ruggles' body was returned to his native Norwich for burial after he died in Massachusetts in 1849 at the age of 39. Ruggles' death was so notable, Plummer said, that there were newspaper reports of it at the time. Unfortunately, most early burial records from the Yantic Cemetery were lost in a fire, he said.



Plummer will also look for information on Ruggles in an extensive listing of 19th-century deaths in New London County kept by two local women.



He also hopes to find physical descriptions of Ruggles for clues to his mysterious death.



"He was struck with blindness in the 1840s," Plummer said. "No one knows what disease he had."



When Ruggles left Norwich, he worked as a printer, writer and publisher in New York, where he founded the Committee of Vigilance. Biographer Graham Russell Gao Hodges credits Ruggles with helping more than 600 slaves to freedom, including famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass. That biography is expected to be released in paperback by late summer 2012, Hodges said Tuesday.



The local Freedom Trail Committee is working to place the Yantic Cemetery both on the National Register of Historic Places and as a stop on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.



The cemetery research was one component of that research. Plummer would not rule out seeking an excavation at some point in the future, but that would entail contacting family members and detailed planning, he said.



c.bessette@theday.com

