This is where you will find our most recent work from the past year. We update this yearly in the winter during the off season as we plan for the upcoming year. Things you have seen here previously cycle to our archives section under one of its 7 categories, or at the top under archives. Please check the home page or this page for the latest project information.
A Revolutionary War Veteran & founding father of Deersville Ohio.
Medway Cemetery, Medway Ohio
This cemetery preservation effort consists of repairs to 63 tombstones. The colored letters in the before pics were done by the client to list & keep track of which stones they wanted repaired.
The church still serves a small congregation.
Being face down was the best thing to happen to Catherine’s tombstone if it were going to be down at all.
Being face down only means this stone will have a bit of a patina look that will whiten over time. But it kept the weather elements from warring away the inscription. If you run across a tombstone that you are unable to erect properly, you should always place it face down to save the inscription.
Now standing tall & unforgotten.
A small 3 piece stack job.
Reconstructing a 6 piece monument.
Thanks so much to Scott Anderson for showing up for the day & helping out. Scott attended my November 2013 class in Guernsey County so he could work with his local historical society to reclaim the Old Burial Ground Cemetery in Greenfield. His project is going very well & I am happy to help Scott anytime he needs it. You can find him & what he is doing under my section called “Those Who Care”. You will see the project under “Cemetery Groups”.
Hattie & Hetie get a new base.
Charlie continues to whiten by the day.
This is Dave Suther the caretaker & leading voice of the Medway Cemetery Assoc. Dave is the best friend this cemetery could possibly have. Dave was very instrumental in beginning this preservation by working with the Medway Area Historical Society & the Cemetery Association. You will find him under my section called “Those Who Care”. You will see more about this cemetery’s history under “Cemetery Groups”.
The Captina AME Cemetery Est.1825
This is an ongoing preservation project to fully restore the cemetery for one of Ohio’s oldest original black settlements. These early pioneers free & slave alike came from all across the south to establish a new life in the free state of Ohio. The history of these people is rich & yet largely untold.
Descendants came in from as far away as Maryland to be part of this historical reclamation.
Captina AME Cemetery was part of an original family burial plot belonging to a 300 plus acre section of land. This was owned by Alexander Harper prior to 1825, the year the church was established.
We were thrilled to make this discovery over the past summer. We knew the stone existed but, a type “O” in the information had it marked as 1833. This 1823 date changes everything we once thought we knew about the earliest history of this cemetery, the church, & the land.
Mark Lucas A descendant of Civil War veteran John Lucas mows off a section.
It all began with some basic maintenance to help us see what we were doing so we could seek out the pieces of this puzzle.
This cemetery was originally thought to contain 113 recorded burials. New record research & new discoveries through excavation have brought that number up to 120.
Volunteers from the Belmont County OGS were on hand to clean the Harper family monument in preparation for being disassembled, leveled, & reassembled in 2015.
The cemetery has 9 recorded Civil War Veterans. We believe we have found possibly 3 more. There is also a Mexican American War veteran according to the WPA map. We are currently researching that treasured find. We are planning on setting at least 3 govt. issue military markers this season. Henry Lynn above is the only military marker on the site at this time.
There was much excavation in finding what had been toppled over & covered by inches of sod & years of neglect.
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And the work continues.
By the 4th of July things were well underway.
Lutitia had at least 2 grandsons who fought in the Civil War. We believe there are 2 other CW vets from this younger Peterson generation also buried in this cemetery.
The help & knowledge from the descendants of those buried here has been invaluable to the reconstruction of this cemetery.
A view from the back of the cemetery facing the road.
We were constantly surprised at the amount of surviving rough cut field-stone markers.
Some are very faint like the one above. Others are simple field stones that are found every few feet in rows as we excavate by sections. These simple stones have helped us greatly in our efforts to map the cemetery using a grid.
Working a base & stone for one of the Harpers.
After excavating the known areas as well as documenting what was in plain sight, we set ourselves to standing up what we had thus far before seasons end.
We cannot wait to begin work again in 2015.
A very warm thank you to the Belmont County OGS & to the descendants who helped make this project possible.
The following job is on private property & the owners have asked us to please not reveal its location. They have graciously agreed to let me share the pictures of the work I did. I can tell you they are very history conscious & have taken excellent care of this cemetery. I can also say the cemetery is in Ohio & is circa 1810.
This stone was an exercise in fixing Delamination, Fracture, & Stone Loss. My biggest challenge was the color matching in the final steps. I was very thankful that if this stone was going to have material loss, it was in the back.
The cemetery completed from the backside. It contains 1 Revolutionary War Veteran. I was able to free it from the concrete it was in & you can see from here how clean & white it came out with some D/2.
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