Volunteers Help Maintain Historic Cemeteries in Passport in Time Project
Volunteers donated their time to take part in cleaning gravestones in Campton, NH.
The "Remember Me As You Pass By" PIT projects draw volunteers from across the US.
The White Mountain National Forest Heritage Resources Program conducted a Passport in Time (PIT) project October 6-10, 2008, with volunteers from Ohio, Vermont, and local communities adjacent to the forest in New Hampshire.
Volunteers contributed their time to clean and restore historic cemeteries on the Pemigewasset and Saco Ranger Districts. The cemeteries date from the 19th century. Some are associated with abandoned farming communities that are now part of the national forest, while others are valued features of local communities who struggle to maintain them.
Guidelines for the preservation and conservation of graveyards from the New Hampshire Old Graveyard Association were followed to ensure proper techniques and materials were used in cleaning and resetting fallen gravestones.
Recording and continued maintenance helps to preserve the cemeteries and their value to local communities, historians, geneaologists, and art historians, while providing an opportunity for PIT volunteers to participate in heritage resources on the forest.
In addition to their work on the cemeteries, volunteers learned about the Forest Service and the White Mountain National Forest. The opportunity to learn about early New Hampshire history and archaeology and to study gravestones dating from the 1600s was included in a day trip to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and a tour of Strawbery Banke museum conducted by the museum's archaeologist, Sheila Charles.
Since 2006, the "Remember Me As You Pass By" historic cemetery PIT projects have been hosted in alternate years on the WMNF and GMNF, where it was initiated by Dave Lacy, Forest Archaeologist on the Green Mountain Finger Lakes National Forest.