Spotlighting the Greenfield Historical Society, Greenfield, Highland County, Ohio and Their Dedication to Restoring The Old Burying Ground in Greenfield

The Greenfield Historical Society has done a wonderful job of preserving not only the history and records of their quaint town of Greenfield, Ohio, but of late they have been quite active as well with hands-on volunteer efforts to preserve and protect their oldest cemetery appropriately named "The Old Burying Ground."  

This blog has devoted several posts over the years to the work that members of the Greenfield Historical Society have done to  improve the condition of the gravestones at the Old Burying Ground which has 366 interments listed for it on "Find A Grave."  

Cleaning and some repair and re-setting of early fragile gravestones produced successful results that are easily seen when comparing the "Before" and "After" photographs posted on the society's website. 

Click HERE to view the photographs taken while in progress with accompanying descriptions of the May 24, 2014 all volunteer cemetery workshop.  This demonstrates how much good can be accomplished in one day by a small group of dedicated volunteers who also have been trained ahead of time to utilize proper methods and tools not to harm the stones.  

Wesley Limes (1831 - 1916) - Find A Grave Memorial

Wesley Limes (1831 - 1916) - Find A Grave Memorial

Sharing my "Find A Grave" Memorial for my g-g grandfather, Wesley Limes, who served in the 66th Regiment, Company "H", from Champaign County, Ohio.

Old Burying Ground, Greenfield, Highland County, Ohio - May 24, 2014 Workshop with Scott and Venus Andersen

Click here to view the album of photographs and read progress descriptions of the work completed by Scott and Venus Andersen, who with their team of volunteers from the Greenfield Historical Society, cleaned, repaired and re-set damaged gravestones on May 24, 2014, at the Old Burying Ground in Greenfield where most of the town's earliest settlers were buried.  

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Below also are the photographs with some details taken during the workshop:

 (All quotes below are by Scott Andersen)

 

(Above)

 
"This stone was my primary focus today.  It has bothered me for a long time now that it has been so close to falling over.  It had broken parts of another stone leaning on it for years, and this is no doubt why it had tipped backwards like this.  The stone belongs to Sarah Smith, wife of Robert, who died in 1880.   

It didn't take much work to get this stone standing straight again.  You can see a broken stone lying behind it.  This is the stone that had been leaning on it, and it turns out this is her husband Robert's stone.  It was broken off, and then broken into two pieces.  Shirley Shields spent a good hour cleaning the stone with water and Orvus soap after we got it standing upright.  It came out very nice."

(A longer shot view of the Sarah Smith stone is shown below)

 

 

(For the two photos shown above)

 
"The first photo shows Sarah Smith's stone in the background, with her husband's stone laying just behind it.  Laying on the ground just in front of it here is her son, William Smith's stone.  William died in 1816, so this is one of the oldest stones at the Old Burying Ground. 

The next photo shows the located lower portion of William's stone.  His stone is unusual to the Old Burying Ground, as it is a simple tablet with no base.  Most headstones there have a separate base.  William's stone had broken into three pieces."

 

( Photo directly above and the photo directly below)

Here you can see William Smith's stone back up and the epoxy repair drying with the clamps in place.   We had just located the buried base to Robert Smith's headstone at this point, and John King is seen here digging down to it.

 

(Photo above)

Cleaning up after working on the three Smith gravestones

 

 

 (Above)

"These look pretty good don't you think?  Considering two of them were in three pieces, and the other was about to join them on the ground, I'm pretty happy."

Scott

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(Description for the photographs below of the Mary, David and Amy Templeton gravestones)

"There were six of us working with the gravestones today.  Below are photos of a group of three that Venus and Susan Thompson cleaned for us.  John King and I followed afterward and straightened them up.  The stone on the right of Amy Templeton had to be removed from it's base and re-set with slot mix.  The girls did a great job cleaning these stones, they look terrific."