Preservation in Centre County

Category B includes those sites with ten or more stones which are no longer active and have no visible caretaker. These are sites which often meet or come within reach of the State and National definitions of a Historical Burial Ground. Often these sites were once attached to large families which have moved out of the area or once belonged to churches which are no longer active.

The main reason for grouping these sites together is that the majority of them do not receive consistent and reliable care. Much of the care comes in the form of a yearly "clearing out." This means that once a year someone comes in and clears the brush out of the area, sometimes including pieces of the site itself such as old stones which might be found stacked to the side.

Much of these sites are in their present condition due to the lack of ownership of the property. Many of these sites are no longer formally "owned." In many cases the plots are separated and given different parcel numbers, yet no owner will be listed. Many times there is no referring deed to look up. In some cases, the properties are acknowledged on the tax maps, yet are given no parcel number.

What all of these sites require is to be formally (legally) acknowledged, any missing property ownership information examined and a committed volunteer caretaker group who would be willing to adopt the cemetery.

But here too, there is variation within the category. Some sites, such as Pennsylvania Furnace are easy to assign to caretakers. In September, I helped out with a group from State of the Art, during United Way's Day of Caring. The results were remarkable. We had twelve people with lawn mowers and weed whackers and rakes and by the end of the day the site was successfully cleared and in far better shape than when we had arrived.

Pennsylvania Furnace also Centre Hill and a few others are sites with relatively thick stones well positioned and marked. Few, if any, of the stones were broken or had fallen. Most of the work involved "clearing out" the cemetery, without any real need for any form of restoration.

Many of the sites are not so fortunate. Many of these sites will require that the site be stabilized before anyone touches it with a power tool. Sites like Allison and Brungard have several fallen stones, broken stones, and stones which are leaning up against trees or braced up by logs. Sites such as Henderson have so many small hand carved sandstone markers, that a weedeater may just cut them in half.

All the sites in this category require that the site be examined fully and stabilized before a regular volunteer caretaker group will actually be able to do any maintenance on the site such as lawn and landscape. This does not mean that an interested group can not aid in the initial restoration, only that they have skilled help along and have been supervised and trained in how to handle some of the conditions found at these sites.

These sites should also be mapped and surveyed, paying special attention to any alterations that the care and possible restoration may have made to the site.