Big scrub for old headstones

SPENCER’S CORNER — History buffs should don their oldest clothes and head to the Spencer’s Corner Burying Grounds at the corner of Merwin Clark and Rudd Pond Roads on Monday, Oct. 10 at 10 a.m. to join in The Big Scrub, an effort to clean some of the many gravestones in need of care.

The project, under the direction of Claire Goodman, president of the Friends of Spencer’s Corner  Burying Ground (FOSCBG) which was approved as a non-profit corporation in March 2022 is designed to help preserve the area’s heritage and to pay homage to those who have come before.

Volunteers are welcome with training and even soda and beer, and equipment supplied. That includes gloves, nylon brushes and an ecologically sound compound, D2, which is formulated to remove years of accumulated growth and grime while allowing the stone’s desirable patina to remain.

The spray will be applied the day before The Big Scrub which will allow for careful but easy scrubbing followed by water and a remarkable shedding of the ages.

In some instances, second or even third applications are necessary, but she says that some stones have already been cleaned, allowing for accurate readings of names, dates, and other information.

The new information is being used by architect and FOSCBG board member Laurie Kerr to create a grid of the grounds and its inhabitants. She, with the aid of her nephew and his camera drone, used black and white winter photos to provide the basis for the architectural grid.

All information will eventually be available to amateur genealogists as the group moves forward in it preparation of a pamphlet and web site.

With many stones in poor condition or even flattened and hidden by  years of weather and frost upheavals, the organization has also begun to work with Connecticut’s Monument Conservation Collaborative for an eventual excavation to be funded by donations and grants.

Already acknowledged by a state historical marker, Goodman says the organization has also begun work for on a complex application to the National Registry of Historic Places as inclusion there allows for many grant applications.

The burying ground and the nearby original Spencer house are all that remain of a small community including a Baptist church, post office and general store located on the edge of the rutted Salisbury Turnpike, which was used to transport goods from this iron rich area to the Hudson River.

At least one stone is dated 1701, part of an estimated 400  burials which include ancestors  of some of the area’s oldest families. Goodman is hopeful that as more descendants learn of the project they will provide information which will supplement that already gleaned from library and Historical Society records. She said some of the most  valuable is in handwritten notes for historically based articles written by Chet Eisenhuth and published in the 1960’s in the Millerton News.

For more information or to make a donation, write to Goodman at PO Box 1031.

Some of The Friends of Spencer’s Corners Burying Ground as pictured in a May 12 issue of The Millerton News following a May 7 cleanup at the site.  From top “left, Charlie Campbell, Ralph Fedele, Tom Thornton, Lyman Terni, Justin Sinisi,  Alice Quinn, Laurie Kerr, Jack Campbell, Jim Campbell and Claire Goodman. Photo submitted