Cemetery restoration to be featured on History Day, Oct. 4
Courtesy of Harold Schmidt
Greenfield Historical Society
On Oct. 4, during the History Day activities, volunteers will be at the Old Burying Ground (behind Travellers Rest) to provide information about the work being done to restore gravestones in the cemetery.
Visitors will be able to see the progress which has been made and also see demonstrations of various techniques used to straighten, clean, re-assemble and “glue” some of the tombstones.
In September 2013, Scott Andersen and John King attended a daylong Dick's Creek Cemetery restoration workshop in Warren County.
Scott had already been involved in work at the local Dean Graveyard and John was interested in seeing some improvements in the Old Burying Ground. This workshop provided some valuable insights as to how to go about cleaning and repairing gravestones.
As a follow-up to this workshop, Jay Hardy (Hardy Memorials of Greenfield) offered a workshop of his own at the Old Burying Ground in October 2013. Jay has much experience in cleaning and repairing gravestones in the Greenfield cemeteries.
After those two workshops, there was growing interest and enthusiasm to begin a series of work projects at the Old Burying Ground to repair and clean the gravestones. The first such work project was held in May 2014, under the direction of Scott Andersen, project leader.
A small group of volunteers met on a Saturday morning to start to “make a difference” in the condition and appearance of the cemetery.
The work sessions usually last about 5-6 hours each. Anyone can participate in these work sessions as more will be scheduled in the future. One does not need to be a member of the Greenfield Historical Society – just have the desire to help preserve a portion of Greenfield’s history.
To volunteer, email the society at (info@GreenfieldHistoricalSociety.org).
Please plan to stop by the Old Burying Ground on October 4 to learn more about this restoration effort.