I have been finishing up the latest of our Port Tobacco reports (more on that tomorrow), but for a change of pace I went back out to St. Nicholas Cemetery at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. Scott and I, ably assisted by the youngest Lawrence--Doug--recovered a record breaking 15 monuments, not including footstones. About half of them need repairs. Hopefully our experience at St. Nicholas will be useful in estimating the level of effort needed to restore the 19th-century cemetery at Port Tobacco if we ever have the opportunity. As our readers might recall, St. Nicholas cemetery was purposely buried by the US Navy. The second of Port Tobacco's three cemeteries was buried by sediments. While the causes are different, we expect the results to be the same.
Given the present rate of recovery, we hope to finish at the Naval air Station by the end of next year.
Jim
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3 comments:
Holy moly! That's a lotta monuments. Sounds like some great progress! With each having a story to tell I'm sure the families are greatful.
Since the cemetery at Port Tobacco was buried by sediment naturally, I hope we could find the stones in the proper location and without breaks. The St. Nicholas cemetery was treated rather roughly and about 30% of the stones recovered were broken at the time of demolishion. We'd all like the chance to find out if the stones at Port Tobacco survived a natural occurance.
According to long time residents at least 2 gravestones were recovered from the Port Tobacco “swamp” cemetery when the 1930’s bride was built. Lets hope others weren’t moved around by construction equipment or destroyed when either the 1930’s or 1950’s bridges were installed.
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