Preserving lives: Cemetery project revives headstones
By Jennifer Mann/ Staff Writer
Thursday, July 28, 2005

Arlington resident Kevin Duffy stood among the green grass under the shining sun last week and admired his artwork. It was not paintings, sculptures or mosaics he delighted in, but gravestones - lots of them.

Duffy, who created his own business, Line and Stone, Inc., has been enlisted by the town's Cemetery Commission to restore the headstones in the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. There is a particular focus on the older stones, which are in the first 16 or so rows back from Medford Street.

     "Most of these have been unintentionally neglected for a long time," Duffy said. "We've gone through and kind of cherry-picked the ones that are in the worst condition and the most vulnerable."

     The cemetery was officially incorporated in 1842, but according to Jean Smith, who is in charge of records and scheduling burials at the site, some of the graves go back as far as the early 1800s.

     That means more than 200 years of weathering and deterioration for some of the tombstones, a number of which display well-known surnames like Dallin, Peirce, Hardy, Robbins, Russell and Whittemore.

     Frank Hurd, who is on the Board of Cemetery Commissioners, said the restoration work can also be seen as a project in history.

     "You will see a lot of families (buried in the cemetery) that are actually the early settlers of the town, so it is important to keep those graves up so that future generations can view them," he said. "Cemeteries can often be a source of information for people."

     He said the work is also a part of the board's larger effort to bring awareness to the cemetery and the stories it holds. They are also considering signs and brochures that would highlight some of the more notable burials, as well as a page on the town Web site that would allow the curious to look up many of the names.

     Duffy's role in the project, he said, came about after the board noticed several cemetery trust funds that have remained largely untouched since they were put in place in the late 1800s: there was $5,000 within the Robbins Trust, $2,000 within the Samuel C. Buckman Trust and $2,100 within the Soldiers' Monument Trust.

Duffy began his work in April, after the board asked him to restore some of the stones that were in the worst condition as a pilot program.

"When they were cleaned, it became evident that the stones that had been repaired stood out," Hurd said. "When we were satisfied that we were on the right track, we expanded to do some more stones... Ultimately, the goal is to have the entire cemetery up to a level that we'd all like to see."

Hurd said what they have completed so far is "just a start," but they are "on the right track."

"We are very fortunate to have a craftsman like (Duffy)," he added. "He is really someone who has taken a personal interest in the stones."

That much was clear in watching Duffy move among the various shapes and sizes of stones in the cemetery last week. To the unassuming eye, it would be hard to tell how much work had gone into whiter and brighter (and in some cases, newly whole) stones of the older section of the cemetery. But Duffy could describe to the tee the type of repairs he had done to each and every one of them, along with the work that is still waiting to be done.

Duffy said most of the early markers were made out of marble, and within the cemetery there are examples of Tennessee marble and Vermont white. But while it is beautiful to look at, marble does not as ably brave the elements like granite does, he said, which is the material used most often for gravestones today.

"The biggest enemy to marble is acid rain," Duffy explained.

He added that the material also absorbs water, making it a welcome home for the moss-like lichen, that adorned many of the markers around him.

"It looks very mystic, but the stones can't breath as well and ultimately that does even more deterioration and damage."

To clean off the fungus, Duffy scrubs the surfaces by hand with cleaning fluids. He said he never power washes or steams them, because it is important "to preserve the integrity of the stone."

Also, the stones from the 1800s and early 1900s were often constructed in parts, he said, and held together with iron or copper pins that have since rusted and expanded, causing them to break down. Without the pins to hold the pieces of the marble in place, many of the stones have fallen in pieces to the ground.

Duffy uses architectural epoxy to put them back together again. He said he does not use mortar, because that also absorbs water and doesn't last nearly as long. For those stones that have not yet toppled but display dilapidated pins, Duffy removes the bindings in a process that he equated to "large-scale dentistry." He then replaces them with nylon or stainless steel.

"My objective here is to arrest the deterioration of the stones and repair them so they are safe," he explained. "I think it is - no pun intended - a valid undertaking." He said some stones weigh as much as 1,200 pounds, making it important to secure them.
But he added there is also another goal in his work, and that is what Hurd had mentioned as being important: making sure the names and stories on the stones are available to the public eye for generations to come.

"It is really a lost art," he said. "When I see a row of stones that are finished, it is very rewarding...because you are unearthing people's lives and preserving them."

Kevin Duffy works on an old gravestone at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. (Jennifer Mann photo)