Amid weeds and toppled tombstones, historic Montgomery County cemetery struggles to rebuild

Gen. John F. Hartranft and Sgt. William D. Jenkins fought for the Union during the Civil War as part of Pennsylvania's 51st Volunteer Infantry. They went on to share another bond formed by war, a common resting place: Montgomery Cemetery, where they are memorialized as decorated veterans and, for Hartranft, as Pennsylvania's 17th governor, as well.

Now, more than 150 years later, their gravestones are in need of fixing up so that their courageous deeds are appropriately respected in eternal rest. With toppled headstones and worn grave markers, the historic cemetery, 25 acres along the Schuylkill in West Norriton, is in need of major help.

"We're very aware of our ancestry and the importance of all of our ancestors' participation in this country's history," said Helen L. Shireman, who lives in Adams County and whose great-grandfather was Hartranft.

Charlie Evans of Limerick, a great-grandson of Jenkins, who was under Hartranft's command, remembers going to the cemetery as a child with his mother and grandmother, and watching them place flowers on his great-grandfather's grave.

"I love it down there," Evans said, proud of his family's place in history if not the current condition of the cemetery.

Dozens of tombstones have sunk into the ground. Others have already toppled over because of shifting ground and vandals who kick memorials down. It's impossible to make out what's etched on some stones after years of erosion.

But to restore a cemetery — in this case, one that dates to 1847– is expensive.

The nonprofit Historical Society of Montgomery County maintains the expansive cemetery, where about 6,000 people are believed to be buried. It has owned the burial ground since 1997, when the Baptist Mission of North America simply handed over the property for free because no one wanted to purchase it.

The historical society, which welcomes volunteer help, can manage day-to-day costs through private donations and events, said executive director Barry Rauhauser, but the organization falls short on funds needed for major repairs.

Howard Pollman, spokesman for Pennsylvania's Historical and Museum Commission, said that as far as the commission knows, it's not common for a historical society to own a cemetery. "We haven't heard a lot about that happening," he said.

In Montgomery Cemetery — at the end of Hartranft Avenue near West Norriton's border with Norristown — a total of five Civil War generals are buried.

Generations of local families are buried there, too, alongside notable abolitionists and more than 400 veterans from the Civil War to the Korean War.

Also interred there is the author Charles Heber Clark, who, according to historians, accused Mark Twain of plagiarism in an extended rivalry. (Clark was accused in kind by Twain.)

And don't forget the dog.

It's not a designated pet cemetery, but one pup is said to be buried here with his owner, Rauhauser said.

Just how costly is it to conserve this historic cemetery?

After the Hartranft family's obelisk was vandalized with white paint several years ago, the historical society had to bring in a conservationist. It cost $17,000 just to clean the monument, Rauhauser said.

It also costs several thousand dollars to bring in cranes capable of uprighting heavy monuments, often made of marble, Rauhauser said. Each year, he said, the historical society tries to fix five or six big monuments.

Still, about 500 other tombstones need repairs, Rauhauser said. The text on several has worn down so severely that it's difficult to read what is etched into the stone. The words on other stones are marred by black and white stains that resemble a Rorschach test.

But dozens of other tombstones bear clearly marked text.

Some offer brevity. "Gone Home," reads the headstone for William E. Lawrence, who died in 1908.

Others favor extra-long inscriptions.

Col. Edwin Schall, a Union officer in the Civil War, died in 1864 at Virginia's Battle of Cold Harbor. One side of his monument is inscripted with a 15-line message. It ends: "While gallantly leading on his men, he was shot through the neck, and instantly expired."

The cemetery, which is nondenominational, had its first burial in 1849, said Rauhauser. Walking the grounds recently, calf-high weeds rustled where he stepped. (A lawn-mowing crew usually comes into the cemetery to trim the grass every two weeks or so, Rauhauser says, but  several days of rain had thrown off the schedule.)

The cemetery, first owned by a private company, thrived during the 1900s, Rauhauser said. The company profited by selling large family plots, he said, and families could honor their loved ones at a wooden chapel within the cemetery. But by the 1950s and '60s, he said, many of the bigger family plots had already been sold and the owners didn't have a marketing team to keep the cemetery going. Upkeep was an uphill battle.

"At that point, it started to fall into a little bit of disrepair," Rauhauser said. "There was some vandalism and things like that."

The chapel burned down — likely by accident, Rauhauser said — in the 1930s. By the 1970s, the cemetery company had lost many of its investors, and disbanded.  The Baptist Mission of North America had held ownership rights to the cemetery since the 1980s, and after 10 years of trying to sell it, simply gave the cemetery to the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Rauhauser said.

"As you can imagine, it's kind of a tough sell to get anyone to spend over a quarter of a million dollars on a cemetery that doesn't have a whole lot of plots left," Rauhauser said of the mission's difficulty in selling the cemetery. "Of course, the fact it was sitting here for 10 years without a caretaker meant there was a lot of vandalism and a lot of problems."

Even 20 years after assuming ownership, the historical society still has plenty of work to do in the cemetery, Rauhauser said.

Tombstones are "incredibly expensive to fix," he said. "And over the years, we've had problems with ATVs coming back here. Still, every now and then, I'll find someone golfing."