I am sick again in Watford City. I wrote a previous post titled “Being Sick In Watford City”. In that post, I wrote that I think there must be something wrong with the land that I am working on. I wrote that in a half joking way, but more and more I want to know what this land had been before I got here. I don’t want to give the specific location of where I am working because I don’t want to cause my employer problems and myself problems.

I need to go into the Watford City offices to inquire about what had been here. I don’t know if I should say, ”Hello. I am sick all the time, like I have never before been in my life. I am wondering if the property that I am working on is making me sick. Can you tell me if this property used to be the town landfill or dump? Did they dump a tremendous amount of DDT, Agent Orange, hazardous waste, uranium, or something like that on this property?”

Ever since I got here, a coworker has been saying that this property is cursed. I say to them, “You are just kidding aren’t you, you don’t really mean that do you?” They always reply, “No, I’m serious.”

How I found out about the Haven family murder in Watford City in 1930, was because I was trying to determine what had been on this land. I wrote the post titled “Blood Bath In Watford City”. All five Haven family members were murdered on their farm by the hired man, Charles Bannon, who was hung from a bridge over Cherry Creek. Was I working on the Haven farm? So far, from what I can tell, the Haven farm is ½ mile away from the land I am working on.

I thought that this land might have been a paupers’ cemetery, what they call a “Potter’s Field”. I spent a couple of hours trying to explain to a friend of mine that when a person dies, and their body is not claimed by friends or family, the county will bury them in what is known as a “Potter’s Field”, and there is no marking of the grave, and most often no record of the location of the body. I continued to explain, that as time goes on, everybody gets older, a town expands, and property gets sold. A property gets sold with the buyer being told it had been a “Potter’s Field”, but there isn’t a written record of the number and location of the bodies. The property may get sold again several more times, and no one remembers that the property had ever been a paupers’ cemetery. The land gets built on, with just about nobody remembering what had been there.