HUNTINGTON TWP. — Thursday afternoon beneath the cool, damp clay of a township barn floor, history was unearthed. When Dan Dailey and his two helpers, Greg McConaha, 33, and Greg Bentley, 30, struck something hard while digging a posthole in an old barn next to the $450,000 home Dailey bought last spring, they figured they'd just cement around it and move on.

They figured wrong.

"You don't just cover something like this up and forget about it," Dailey said late Thursday, hours after the astounding discovery of a 142-year-old gravesite belonging to 3-year-old Hattie Adele Pratt, the subject of an Archibald Willard painting, "Blue Girl."

Willard, a Bedford native who died in 1918, is more recognizable as the artist who painted the famous "Spirit of '76" portrait.

Hattie Adele was the daughter of Benjamin and Alta Pratt, according to past owners of the homestead. Hattie died in 1862 at the tender age of 3, but not before a photographer captured her image in a photo. Willard painted "Blue Girl" from the photo years later.

It was common for families to bury their dead in family plots on farms, said Coroner Paul Matus.

Over the years Hattie's plot was covered and lost — or not — over a series of ownerships. The Daileys bought the home from the Pruitts last May, who owned the home for more than 50 years. Dailey was attracted to the home's rich history — it was built in 1840 by Reverend Ansel Clark, a fierce enemy of slavery. Its basement, attic and walls contain a slew of hiding places and secret passages that hid slaves passing through on the Underground Railroad. Dailey is turning the property into an alpaca farm, but his discovery Thursday afternoon took his work in a completely different direction.

"We were digging for a post in the barn," Dailey said. "It was located about a foot beneath where we dug."

Initially, they hit a slat of sandstone and broke it up; as they dug deeper they found marble.

"I wiped it off and saw the word ‘died,' " Dailey said. "I thought, ‘Uh-oh, we've got a body here.' "

They uncovered an exquisitely hand-carved marble gravestone, about 20 inches by 12 inches. A small hand holding flowers is carved at the top of the grave marker, with a name underneath: "Hattie Adele." Beneath that, a date: "Died Oct. 21, 1862 … 3 years — 5 mos — 10 days."

Dailey immediately called in his wife.

"I asked, ‘What does the name Hattie Pratt mean to you?'"

"That's The Little Blue Girl in Willard's painting," said Marge, his wife.

"Well, she's in the barn," he said.

Dailey called the Wellington police.

"What do you do when you uncover a grave in your backyard?" Dailey said he asked the dispatcher. "I don't know how to answer that question," she said. The dispatcher made a few calls, eventually contacting Matus and the Wellington Historical Society.

A small fervor erupted, and today McConaha, Bentley and Dailey and his family are racing to contact an 80-year-old cousin of Hattie Adele who stopped out at the house last July.

"He just came by to show his wife where he grew up," Marge said. "We can't remember his name or anything, but we'd like to get in touch with him."

As the owners of the property, the Daileys are the legal owners of the gravesite, but they say they're waiting to contact the family before moving further.

Matus and members of the Wellington Historical Society will be at the site today to inspect the grave, but Dailey is certain there will be more graves.

"There's no way that they would just bury her here by herself," he said. "Her mother and father have to be nearby."

In a small barn in Wellington, history is being uncovered, but for the Daileys, today is going to be a long day of digging.

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