Greece man finds 32 decades-old fenders buried in backyard

GREECE, N.Y. (WHEC) — It’s something you’d never expect to find in your backyard: Old fenders dumped and buried.

It happened to a local man from Greece who was shocked by what he saw on Monday.

“After a couple of months, you could start seeing metal,” Roger Brown said. “And then I dug a little bit and she goes, you should dig them out and I said, ‘Yeah I will but not right now.’ And that year went by and another year went by and I said, I’m going to get a backhoe.”

Two years ago, Roger Brown was getting his garden ready for the season with a rototiller, when he ran into a problem but decided to wait until now to deal with it.

“I thought there was only like two because I could see the tops of them and I thought there was some other big chunk of metal because I hit a big chunk of metal, but I couldn’t get it with my shovel,” Brown said. “So I expected two, three, not 32!”

You read that right, 32 old car fenders found buried right in his backyard.

“The first ones I saw there was one like right in here, and then the other one was roughly here,” Brown said pointing out his backyard. “And the original one I dug out was over in here, but we dug a couple out over there. The majority of them were all right in here. Just one after another, after another after.”

Brown has lived in the Greece neighborhood off of Stone Road for the past 15 years and said he has no idea how the 32 rusted dust-covered fenders ended up in his yard.

“But I’m glad to figure it out because I don’t want them laying in lawn, too long,” Brown said.

But said someone who used to live in the area told him that his neighborhood used to be farmland and near a small quarry.

“I don’t know how to say it,” Brown said. “It just blows my mind. You know, never in my wildest dreams, I thought I’d dig up this many.

Friends that were…I’m retired, but before I retired, I was telling them, they said, oh, you better hope there’s not a body down there you know and it’s like, if there is, it’s not on me.”

Brown said at one point he thought it was a whole car down there!

Those fenders found look similar to the old school Ford Model T fenders dated back to the ’30s.

Brown hopes there are no more fenders in his backyard and said his next steps is to try to get rid of them in some way or another.

The Town of Greece’s historian sent News10NBC the following email:

"Attached is a snapshot of the area in 1924. It appears that the house at that address did not exist at that time. The location was occupied by a 19-acre lot owned by Elizabeth Defendorf (et al). I show an advertisement in 1928 by E. Defendorf that lists a barn, greenhouses and other metal works for sale. The owners are in the location of the acreage and it may be that the plot was sold at this time. The late 1920’s saw a dramatic expansion of tract developments in that area. It seems likely this may have been the purpose of selling the plot. I’ve included a 1923 real estate tract development map in that area that highlights this history.

"Current maps show Duffern significantly extended since the 1924 map.

"If you go to www.greeceimages.org, you can see these maps and many other historical photos of Greece."