[CPProt.net] Historical gravestones endangered

[Museum Security Network / Cultural Property Protection Net (Ton Cremers)]

Historical gravestones endangered
By Alex Savvides / Metro Editor 

It's hard enough fighting time itself.

But for those who preserve historical monuments, vandalism and theft can
make things much harder.

According to members of the New Brunswick Historical Association, a few of
the most endangered historical sites downtown are three graveyards on Morris
Street, where some of the monuments have death dates that date back to the
1830s. 

The cemeteries serve as virtual directories of prominent names in the city's
history, said Morris Kafka, a member of the city's Historical Association. 

The grassy plots also have an important aesthetic role in downtown New
Brunswick, Kafka said.

"There's very little green space downtown," Kafka said. He said that the
cemeteries were not entertainment destinations. "It's not a park, it's a
place to contemplate, and come and visit and learn about history. Basically,
all the street names you find downtown, you find people with those names in
the cemeteries."

Some of the oldest headstones are located at the Willow Grove Cemetery on
the far east of Morris Street. 

"There are some graves that are from before 1830 at that cemetery," Kafka
said. "They were moved there, because the old cemetery was decommissioned."

Robert Belvin, director of the city Free Public Library and a member of the
Historical Association, said that some early funeral plots had to be
relocated after buildings were erected on the former gravesites. 

Today, Saint Peter's Catholic Chuch stands where the three graveyard once
laid. 

"In any city, they get placed, and the church moves, and they have to move
the cemetery," Belvin said. "The Baptists have had to move their bodies at
least four times."

Part of the damage is accidentaly caused by city public works department or
volunteer maintenance workers, Kafka said. 

"The cemetery is the exactly the opposite of what that equipment is meant
for," Kafka said. "They have suffered from having equipment banging off
those monuments." 

Worse are the occasional thefts of headstones and other acts of vandalism
that target the cemeteries, Kafka said. 

"I think it is popular either for vandalism or theft for people to steal
graves," Kafka said. "Children's graves are popular to steal because they're
small and they're cute. Occasionally there's lambs or so forth."

Trespassers have also been responsible for littering and the trampling of
gravestones, Kafka said. 

"You will see graffiti, you will see monuments that have been broken over.
You will see litter, and beer bottles," he said. "People go there to do
questionable things because it's dark and there's not much traffic down
there."

Residents also filed a police report several months ago reporting that part
of the cast-iron fence surrounding the Willow Grove cemetery had been
stolen. 

The expense of replacing thefence will be high, Kafka said. 

"The fact is that the fence does date to the mid-19th Century, if you look
at it. It's all cast iron with some wrought-iron details, and the historical
value is high," Kafka said. "It's not the material but the execution. It's
one of the most elegant fences in the whole area. It's survived completely
intact until a few years ago, when the first section disappeared." 

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