Hundreds of Infant Bones Found Under Historic Home

MARSHALL COUNTY, MS – (WMC-TV) – A man doing some renovations on a historic home found human bones in the cellar. The bones are believed to be more than 150 years old.The Maxwell family likes historic homes. When they stumbled upon Thistledome, one of the oldest homes in Marshall County, Mississippi, it was a no-brainer. While Todd Maxwell knew there was history around the property, he never expected to dig it up under the house. When he was crawling on his hands and knees, fixing some floorboards in the cellar last week, Maxwell made a chilling discovery.

The state crime lab says the bones are those of human infants and are more than 150 years old.On Thursday, while filming the story, Maxwell found another one. Maxwell is renovating the property, which is on the National Register of Historic Places because of who used to live there. “It was originally built in 1840 and it was the home of General James Ronald Chalmers, who led the Battle of Collierville three different times,” said Maxwell. There is a good chance the bones Maxwell found are what is left of the Civil War general’s missing siblings, who likely died of Scarlet Fever when they were very young. “I could find three grave sites of the children, of the seven children, but I couldn’t find the other four,” he said. The historic home hosts weddings and events. They are planning a murder mystery dinner and after this discovery, Maxwell thinks it may be a little bit more interesting. In addition to the bones found in the cellar, Maxwell believes there may be more bones on the property since it was near one of the battle sites during the Civil War. A team of archaeologists from Ole Miss will come up here to see what they can dig up later this year.