As was promoted here earlier this summer, the Sheep Pen Cemetery Hands-On Preservation Workshop was held on June 25, 2016.
During the day-long workshop, condition issues for a large number of gravestones were identified with the able assistance provided by Scott and Venus Andersen, John King, and others who are members of the Greenfield Historical Society, and of course the workshop enrollees themselves who traveled there to learn and improve their working knowledge of proper gravestone preservation practices.
One of the larger and older monuments that sat atop a wide slotted base was cleaned, hoisted up, and reset on June 25th. It belongs to William Irwin, Jr. and has been proudly standing in place for him at the Sheep Pen Cemetery for almost 150 years.
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(Before and after photos above by Scott Andersen)
Large containers of water were hauled in for the workshop. Other supplies included tarps, buckets, soft bristle brushes, a special bright orange colored "lifter" to lift up the bases of larger monuments, and an ample supply of D/2 Biological Solution which was used to clean the William Irwin, Jr. monument.
(Photos below by Scott Andersen)
(Above is the William Irwin, Jr. monument after it was cleaned and hoisted up from its slotted base.)
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Please Note:
No power tools were used at the workshop! That means NO nyalox brushes on power drills that damage and diminish the surface of the gravestones, nor power washers, were on hand or used!
This fact is so important to emphasize. It is good to know that Sheep Pen Cemetery was spared from them!
Sadly, too many of Ohio's cemeteries have not been as fortunate as Sheep Pen because the use of these abrasive tools on gravestones has "wormed its way" into the Buckeye State from Indiana and wrongly promoted as safe when the results show how destructive they are. The passage of time has proven this truth.
