They don’t call it The Old Burying Ground for nothing.
As one would expect, most of the headstones at the Old Burying Ground on Mechanic Street have been standing there for a long time now. Now, some of the headstones have even fallen over.
Brian Mitchell, a Boy Scout from Troop 821 out of Blessed Sacrament, hoped to fix that problem.
The Westfield Parks and Recreation Department maintains the Old Burying Ground, along with most other public cemeteries in Westfield, according to Joe Mitchell, the father of Brian Mitchell.
“Their budget keeps getting smaller,” said Joe Mitchell. “So my son approached the Westfield Parks and Recreation Department to get permission to try to fix and preserve the headstones.”
Brian Mitchell is going for the Eagle Scout rank and in doing so, must complete an Eagle Scout Service Project. This project is a required community service project that must benefit an organization outside of the Boy Scouts of America, according to the Eagle Scout Service Project Workbook.
According to Joe Mitchell, Brian sought out his fellow scouts and the Westfield Historical Commission to help him try to preserve the headstones at the Old Burying Ground. He also sought out help from businesses like Big Y, who provided lunch on the day of the event, and Home Depot and Rocky’s Ace Hardware for special tools that were needed.
“About 54 scouts, parents and other volunteers from the Historical Commission showed up to help us out,” says Joe Mitchell.
The headstones at the Old Burying Ground date back to the 1600’s, when settlers first started coming to the area, according to Joe Mitchell. The headstones were created from marble, which over a certain period of time start to fall over.
Since special care was needed when fixing and preserving the headstones, Brian Mitchell and 7 volunteers from the Historical Commission were given training on how to properly fix and preserve historic pieces, such as the headstones at the Old Burying Ground.
Another important aspect of the project was the logging of GPS locations of the historic graves.
“The historical commission and the city have data where the gravestones are, but it’s incomplete. The scouts will get exact coordinates of the headstones to make a more comprehensive database.” said Joe Mitchell.
Prior to the event, organizers estimated that they would be able to fix about 8-12 headstones, if they were lucky. Thanks to a massive effort by the scouts and the volunteers, they were able to fix approximately 40 headstones, according to Joe Mitchell, and were able to log exact GPS locations of every single one of the almost 1,000 headstone at the grounds.
It was a successful day at The Old Burying Grounds.
