On a cold clear day in waning November, two women strode purposefully through the Revolutionary War section of Edgartown’s Old West Cemetery. The nearly stripped trees made jagged shadows and the shorn leaves shifted in against ancient tombstones of various states of repair in the roar of silence only so much history can conceal.
The women were Elizabeth Villard of Chappaquiddick, an Edgartown Cemetery Commissioner and a member of Association of Gravestone Studies (AGS), and Ta Mara Conde, a professional grave conservator and also a member of AGS who own Historic Gravestone Services of New Salem, a tombstone restoration service.
Ms. Villard, who had just finished her shift as a Chappy Ferry captain, explained to The Times that she had led historical walking tours, which eventually sauntered into cemeteries, which is how their personal and periodical tales had captured her.
One marker — not even a grave — tells a fascinating tale. It spells out how Captain Archibald Mellen Jr., 27, born in Tisbury, was killed in mutiny aboard the whaling ship Junior, out of New Bedford, while the vessel was off the coast of New Zealand on Christmas Day of 1857.
The stone even identifies the killer as Cyrus Plummer, a 24-year-old harpooner. Further research tells of Plummer (or Plumer), who, fueled by alcohol, slew Captain Mellen, took over the voyage, and reset the course for gold in Australia, where he was later captured and sent back to the U.S. for trial, oddly enough, aboard the good ship Junior.
So, while young Captain Mellen’s body has long ago been cast into the Pacific, his stone still resides in Edgartown to tell of his miserable fate.
Ms. Villard, who came to the Island in 1990, speaks with excitement and respectful awe as she talks about preserving these memories. She explained that as her interest unfolded, a slot opened up on the Edgartown Cemetery Commission. She applied for the position, joined the panel and began to weigh the potential for evaluation and restorations.
Initially she applied for a Community Preservation Grant in historical resources for $5,000 to help redeem Edgartown and Tisbury cemeteries.
She contacted Ms. Conde through their mutual membership in AGS, a Greenfield-based international nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving history through individual markers. Ms. Conde helped with the information needed to apply for the funding. When the grant came through, the process of choosing a conservator began.
Ms. Villard, who came from a background of theater and teaching in New York, said she spoke with several potential consultants until she met Ms. Conde in person. Ms. Villard said the two women clicked — Ms. Conde had once been in fashion (and glassblowing) in New York.
The cheery conservator Conde, who studied art and geology in college, began her gravestone work 16 years ago, and her Historic Gravestone Services (HGS) in 2007, where she leads hands-on workshops to educate interested parties in the proper conservation techniques of cleaning and repairing damaged monuments.
She explained that the oldest stones were hand-carved slate. As carving tools emerged around 1800, marble was used for stones, and today, granite is the stone of choice; it can display remarkable artwork and sentiments, in addition to the volumes of history. Each of these mineral broadsides tells of love, valor, or simply a quiet life, but the monuments are victims of time, lichen, weather, moss, years of well-intentioned lawnmowers on uneven soil.
She added that traditional fix-it methods are not ideal. For instance, concrete and epoxy seals water into the repair, which causes rotting, and has harmed many stones. Ms. Conde swears by a special substance from Germany which is designed just for headstones.
While explaining that a young Vincent Van Gogh used to take thoughtful walks through his family plot, Ms. Conde said her interest started by taking care of family graves; she loved the combination of art, history, digging in the dirt and nature, so she learned about stones and stone masonry and combined all the efforts to create her profession.
She said it’s generally seasonal work and that this Vineyard trip could well be her last of the year, but it has been an active one. In this three-day Vineyard visit, she surveyed some 940 graves in Tisbury and Edgartown. An Island volunteer had addressed three wrought iron fences from around family plots and took them down to the metal and brought them back to their former glory. There is an infectious spirit surrounding grave preservation. Both women agreed that there was a great deal more work to be done — cleaning and straightening stones and actual repairs — but that it took funding, albeit not giant sums.
Ms. Villard is discreetly determined to get it. She is now seeking two other $10,000 grants, for ongoing work in Tisbury and another $10,000 for Edgartown. She spoke with appreciative awe as she described the fenced-in family plots, all the captains, the daunting skulls and beautiful ships on marked stones and the empty graves of those souls lost at sea.
