Greenspond Historic Gravestone Preservation Project: Week 2, Old UC Cemetery

It’s another muggy day, and we’ve been back from Greenspond for a week now, so I suppose it’s time to write a blog post! This trip was our second week in Greenspond this field season, right at the end of August, and we had a couple of things going on during this trip, and we had a bit better weather than the last time! Also the project has a name now, under the GHS, the Greenspond Historic Gravestone Preservation Project!

If you are interested in donating to the Greenspond Historical Society in support of the restoration of the historic cemeteries on the island, please email / Etransfer greenspondhs@gmail.com and visit their website HERE for more information about the sites!

On Wed, August 30th, we met the Greenspond Historical Society and community members at the Hub of the North restaurant to give a presentation on the work we’ve done so far, safe headstone cleaning and care, and to meet everyone and answer any questions they might have! We had a really great turnout, with visitors and locals joining us for a 45 minute talk and tons of chatting afterwards. Thank you to Darren of the 709 Watershed Podcast for taking some great photos of the event!

We had a wonderful time visiting with everyone and chatting about all our preservation work and research, but the next day it was time to get down to the hard work! We started by finishing a few stones that had to be left due to the weather from our last trip in the New Anglican Cemetery. The stone epoxy was mixed and the stones were secured together. They look much better than before!

Once those were fixed up (see our previous post about that trip), we moved down to the Old UC / Methodist Cemetery, on the main road that leads from the causeway into Greenspond. Before this road was built, it was only a short walk from the UC church! This site has a wonderful view and is closer to the residential area than the Anglican sites, or the Salvation Army and new UC sites up on the top of the island. I (Robyn) wanted to start this site because it is visible from the road and we thought it would be really nice for people to see the preservation as it happened! This week, we worked on 10 stones at the site.

After the first stone near the entrance to the site was finished, a simple levelling job and light cleaning of a lovely white marble stone dedicated to George House, we started the difficult task of restoring the Lang plot. The plot, which you can see in the photos above is encircled in an iron fence, contained four complex monuments, each made up of three pieces of marble, and one with two marble and one sandstone piece. They had all toppled over due to the degradation of the concrete bases that they had been set on top of. You can see in the left-hand photo that the bottoms of the bases were nearly level with the top of the fence, but that they are leaning backwards. The 4th monument, not pictured, was topped to the side as the concrete had fallen away and the stone rolled off a boulder that was below the base. When we moved the top portion of that monument, we realized it was sitting on top of a surprise 5th monument!

We rolled back the sod mat to find the massive marble ledger dedicated to William Lang, who was born in Greenock, Scotland, and died in Greenspond on March 30th, 1897. It was absolutely stunning, and we were so surprised and excited! We cut back the sod and trimmed the grass around the ledger so that it is visible once again. You can see in the right photo where lichen staining was present around the rectangular monument that had fallen on it. Luckily, no damage was done!

To restore the complex monuments, we removed the concrete and replaced it with a tamped and level foundation of crusher dust, which provides a solid foundation while allowing drainage under the stone. It will last a lot longer than crumbling concrete, that’s for sure! We then placed the bases and made sure they were level, set several inches below the surface, and packing additional crusher dust around them. Each section was then moved into place and secured with stone epoxy to ensure they will not fall off their bases again.

The entire plot took a lot of work and the majority of our time in Greenspond this trip, but we’re really pleased with how it turned out! We trimmed the grass around the fence as well, and the entire plot is suddenly visible from the road. Its made such a different and we’re so pleased!

To round off the trip, we worked on four additional stones in the cemetery, including one that just needed a level and clean, and three that were broken. Due to the weather again (a constantly changing factor of working in Newfoundland), we had to leave the last three stones with their clamps on, to ensure the stone epoxy sets correctly before removal, so those stones have yet to be cleaned. You can see them pictured below, and by the time this post goes live, our friends in Greenspond may have removed those clamps already (if not, that’s ok too)! These stones will be carefully levelled and cleaned first thing when we get back out there next year, and any wide spaces in the repaired crack will be infilled with a white lime mortar. We never use concrete or mortar containing Portland cement in our work, as it traps moisture inside the stones!

And there you have it, our second week of fieldwork for the Greenspond Historic Gravestone Preservation Project! We had wonderful weather, and loved chatting with everyone who stopped by the site to say hi and see how the work was going! It was really cool to be able to work on a site that was so visible this week, and have lots of fun visitors!

Again, if you’re interested in supporting the project, please check out the link at the beginning of this post or you can send an etransfer directly to the GHS at greenspondhs@gmail.com. We had a great meeting with Linda and Joy of the GHS this morning where we brainstormed all the ways we can move forward next year, with this project and the restoration of the old Lodge in Greenspond! We’re already looking forward to next year!