AUGUSTA — Volunteers are working to restore the city’s Hillside Cemetery.
In May, Augusta resident Allen Sellers and Augusta Mayor Michael Taylor walked the cemetery to assess the toll time and vandals had taken on the burial ground.
At the time, there were many tombstones that were broken, missing pieces, tipped over or missing altogether. Some gravesites were also overgrown by weeds and impossible to reach.
Sellers said his concern was with the neglect the cemetery had received over the years.
“The cemetery has been this way for years. There are tombstones laying everywhere. The crypt has been in a bad state for many years. You can see where it’s broken and needs to be repaired,” he said in May.
After Sellers initial complaints, Taylor and Sellers worked to bring together volunteers to clean up the cemetery and repair the tombstones.
Since May, many of the tombstones are again in one piece. He walked through each row of tombstones, pointing out dips in the ground where pieces of the tombstones had previously laid.
“To date, we’ve set 54 headstones — some on the original base,” he said. “Some had to be dug up and reset. We had to pour concrete for 20 headstones to stabilize them and keep them level. There were 14 headstones that were broken and had to be repaired. You can see the holes in the ground where some had toppled over or been pushed.”
Sellers also said it was a challenge to make sure the tombstones were put together correctly.
“There was a pile of foot stones thrown over the bank. Each one had initials on them. We had to match the pieces up correctly with the names on the tombstones. We determined where they went,” he said. “If a tombstone was broken in half, we took them over and made sure they fit correctly.”
According to Sellers, several crypts had also caved in and have since been repaired.
The volunteers used an industrial adhesive to repair the concrete, according to Sellers.
“It’s an industrial type adhesive that was meant for concrete and stone work,” he said. “We’ve used this in the past on the Payne cemetery and it’s still holding strong.”
Sellers said there is a lot more work that needs to be done.
“I figured we’re about 80 percent finished with the top and the top is about one third of the cemetery,” he said.
According to Sellers, the work would not have been completed if not for the work completed by Danny Danehe, Larry Scott, Jay Yingling, Tom Burke, Bill Kiskaden and Sellers. Richard Kiskaden also donated equipment to set the stones.
“We had donations from a family and an organization,” he said. “The Corner Cafe furnished food for us every day. I’m appreciative of all the work done by the volunteers. We wouldn’t have done this without the help.”
Sellers said the cemetery is important because of the people who have family buried there and because of the history behind it.
According to Sellers, many of those buried in the cemetery are World War I and World War II veterans, as well as Union soldiers from the Civil War.
“There are a lot of veterans buried in this cemetery,” he said. “Some of these people buried here are from the founding of Augusta.”
Sellers also pointed out numerous gravesites on the lower hillside that is overgrown by grass and weeds.
“You can see plots over the hillside there,” he said. “There are headstones over there. There are hundreds of graves over the hillside including state senators and many important people.”
One of the people buried in the cemetery is Samuel Wass, who Sellers believes to have been instrumental in helping put the cobblestones on Riverside Drive. Others buried in the hillside graveyard include Joshua Taylor Bradford who led the Home Guard in the Battle of Augusta and members of the Sells family, who made Sells rifles in a foundry in Augusta.
Taylor said he wanted to personally thank all of the volunteers who helped clean up the cemetery.
“It’s a great improvement,” he said. “I want to thank every volunteer who helped make this happen. Everything was donated, so nothing came out of taxpayer money. We had a lot of people come together to make this happen. We’re not finished yet. We’re probably finished for year, but we’re going to go back and continue the work. We’re planning to try and get down the hillside next.”
