As I do my daily drive to Buzzy’s Country Store, I have two landmark spots that I make sure to check out: the trio of crosses on the hill just after Adkins Road in Great Mills and then the ones at Joey Porter’s home in Dameron.
These are known as “Crosses of Mercy” and represent 2 of the approximately 2,000 that a West Virginia gentleman named Bernard Coffindaffer had erected throughout the country and overseas. (For a good story on why and how he came to do this at a total cost of $3 million (click here.))
When I stopped to take a photo of the three crosses at Joey’s home, he was outside working. He told me about the crosses and pointed out that each of the crosses has nails in them. Look closely and you can see them here.
Joey told me about an article that was done on Mrs. Buckner and how she gave the Coffindaffer folks permission to install the crosses. I made a call to Michele (Buckner) Lengel and she informed me that it was an Enterprise front page article on her Mom. I was able to track it down from the 29 December 1987 edition of the Enterprise:
Holy Saturday, so how bout a little Christian music from Alan:
P.S. CBS Sunday Morning’s Bill Geist did a nice story featuring Mr. Coffindaffer (click here for that video.)
P.S. P.S. I think I saw another trio of these crosses someplace else in my County travels. If any of you can confirm that, please chime in and let us know.