N.J.THer
Silver Member
- Nov 16, 2006
- 3,282
- 238
- 🥇 Banner finds
- 1
- Detector(s) used
- Whites DFX w/ Sunray DX-1 probe and Minelab Excalibur 1000, Whites TRX Pinpointer
- Primary Interest:
- Metal Detecting
Well this weekend I dug and held in my hands relic from the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s but you would never guess what the relics were....
Gravestones...before I get a ton of hate mail and rants please read on.
I have a very historic graveyard one town over from where I live. There are gravestones from the 1600s right up to today. Unfortunately the stones prior to the 1900s are really deteriorating. The church does not have the money to pay a professional graveyard conservator to come in and do all the needed work but they did pay out $1,300 for one to come in and do one day of work.
I volunteered to work with the professional and learn some of the basics so I could at least do some of the simpler repairs. I worked from 9am until 5pm. From 9 to noon all he did was walk me around the graveyard and he educate me on the different types and styles of stones and tombs. Then after lunch we were able to repair five headstones. Does not seem like much but it was hard work.
Two were brownstones tablets from the 1600s and 1700s that were located on a hill and the normal erosion had the stones leaning almost completely over. When they lean like that the rain hits the inscriptions directly and erodes them faster then normal. It also increases the chances of them being damaged by lawn mowers which is a huge problem for these older stones. We were able to dig them out and rebuild the underground support using pea gravel and sand. Place them back in line with the other stones and level them out so they should last another three hundred years.
Next we surd up a three foot cross that was on top of a headstone. This was a top priority with Halloween right around the corner. This large cross would wobble if you placed a hand on it. The local kids pass through this graveyard on Halloween and although it is rare sometimes there are vandals. We corrected the problem using lead shims which is the same materials that were used in the 1800s.
The forth stone we fixed was a granite stone that completely fell off its base and pushed most of the base under ground. We had to move the stone then dig the entire base out. Leveled the base above ground with around four inches below ground then reinstated the head stone. prior to starting the work we had no clue who's grave it was. Turned out to be a sea captain and his wife that died in the 1870s. During the digging we found the original lead seals used to connect the stone to its base.
The last was a marble tongue and tenon headstone that had broken in half. The top half was laying on the ground and the bottom half was still in the base but the base was sinking. First we dug out the base and leveled it off. Cleaned the two edges that we would be attaching. Mixed up an epoxy then connected the two parts.
It was a hard day of work but I don't remember the last time I learned so much in such a short period of time and to see the dramatic results from what they looked like before we started to the end product was amazing. The only cleaning we did was to spray the stones with a cleaner that killed the mold, algae and other living organisms that build up on the stones.
Although I had the detector in the car it never entered the graveyard. My mouth was watering but I will not detect in a graveyard. Going forward when I do repairs I'm going to scan the dirt that I remove from the graveyard and maybe I'll get lucky.
In addition to the actual repairs there is a group from the church that is working on photographing and documenting the inscriptions then creating a database. The priest told me that one gravestone in the back of the church was hit by a cannonball from a British ship during the Revolutionary war. lots of history and should keep me busy for a while.
Thanks for reading.
NJ
Gravestones...before I get a ton of hate mail and rants please read on.
I have a very historic graveyard one town over from where I live. There are gravestones from the 1600s right up to today. Unfortunately the stones prior to the 1900s are really deteriorating. The church does not have the money to pay a professional graveyard conservator to come in and do all the needed work but they did pay out $1,300 for one to come in and do one day of work.
I volunteered to work with the professional and learn some of the basics so I could at least do some of the simpler repairs. I worked from 9am until 5pm. From 9 to noon all he did was walk me around the graveyard and he educate me on the different types and styles of stones and tombs. Then after lunch we were able to repair five headstones. Does not seem like much but it was hard work.
Two were brownstones tablets from the 1600s and 1700s that were located on a hill and the normal erosion had the stones leaning almost completely over. When they lean like that the rain hits the inscriptions directly and erodes them faster then normal. It also increases the chances of them being damaged by lawn mowers which is a huge problem for these older stones. We were able to dig them out and rebuild the underground support using pea gravel and sand. Place them back in line with the other stones and level them out so they should last another three hundred years.
Next we surd up a three foot cross that was on top of a headstone. This was a top priority with Halloween right around the corner. This large cross would wobble if you placed a hand on it. The local kids pass through this graveyard on Halloween and although it is rare sometimes there are vandals. We corrected the problem using lead shims which is the same materials that were used in the 1800s.
The forth stone we fixed was a granite stone that completely fell off its base and pushed most of the base under ground. We had to move the stone then dig the entire base out. Leveled the base above ground with around four inches below ground then reinstated the head stone. prior to starting the work we had no clue who's grave it was. Turned out to be a sea captain and his wife that died in the 1870s. During the digging we found the original lead seals used to connect the stone to its base.
The last was a marble tongue and tenon headstone that had broken in half. The top half was laying on the ground and the bottom half was still in the base but the base was sinking. First we dug out the base and leveled it off. Cleaned the two edges that we would be attaching. Mixed up an epoxy then connected the two parts.
It was a hard day of work but I don't remember the last time I learned so much in such a short period of time and to see the dramatic results from what they looked like before we started to the end product was amazing. The only cleaning we did was to spray the stones with a cleaner that killed the mold, algae and other living organisms that build up on the stones.
Although I had the detector in the car it never entered the graveyard. My mouth was watering but I will not detect in a graveyard. Going forward when I do repairs I'm going to scan the dirt that I remove from the graveyard and maybe I'll get lucky.
In addition to the actual repairs there is a group from the church that is working on photographing and documenting the inscriptions then creating a database. The priest told me that one gravestone in the back of the church was hit by a cannonball from a British ship during the Revolutionary war. lots of history and should keep me busy for a while.
Thanks for reading.
NJ
