Sussex County History Today: Huntsville Burial Ground revival

This is the second of two parts of a wonderful writing from guest historian Rich Vohden of Green Township.

Rich is a good friend and an astute historian, and he brings expertise on the southern part of Sussex County.

There are several great aspects to this writing by Rich about a graveyard near his house. For one, it is written in his captivating first-person way, speaks of discovery and action taken to gain information about his finding of the cemetery, and also details how he was able to get it into good repair. Thank you, Rich!

In the first of the two parts, Rich explained about the discovery of the graveyard near his home in Green Township and his initial research. Now, he continues his first-person documentation of reclamation of the cemetery.

It must have been a beautiful spot to stand on a sunny warm day.

The more I learned, the more I became interested. I became obsessed and decided that this was a project I was going to pursue.

I live across the road, and I started to go over once in a while to cut and pile brush or restack stone on the wall. I had a tenant in my house who would occasionally help.

We were making very slow progress when I learned that a friend of mine was serving 180 hours of community service in the county for a minor infraction for a major deviation from acceptable behavior. (It had something to do with alcohol and a truck).

This was in 1992. I called the Sheriff’s Office. They checked out the legality, listed us as the Huntsville Historical Burial Ground Renovation Group, and my new assistant started to log his hours. I learned that I had to be there with him supervising, which I didn’t realize when I signed him up.

We really started to get things done. We removed a lot of fairly large dead elm trees, many cedar trees and piles of invasive multiflora rose along with many garbage bags full of trash. What made the work time-consuming was working around the gravestones.

Local residents started noticing the changes and stopped by to check our progress.

One late afternoon, Mr. Allen Kirby Jr., a large landowner in Green and a great guy, pulled over and said he appreciated what we were doing and asked what we had planned for the future. We had a good conversation.

About a week later, Mr. Kirby stopped by again - this time to give me a check for $20,000 to have the main entrance piers and adjoining walls rebuilt.

I put out bids, executed a contract and had the work done.

It was soon after that Mr. Kirby returned with another check for $20,000 to restack the stone walls for the perimeter of the site.

Again, a bid, a contract and the work was done. Mr. Kirby would visit to express his approval and to our total surprise showed up with another check.

This time for $10,000 to replace a missing wrought-iron gate and a few other projects.

We were pretty much done with the major clearing when we had a visitor who told us that what we were doing was illegal and that we were desecrating sacred property.

I mentioned this to Bill Morris; I spoke of him earlier. I don’t know what Bill did, but a couple days later, the SWAP (Sheriff Work Assistance Program) showed up with a crew and completed the clearing.

They still come regularly to maintain the grounds. They care for many cemeteries in Sussex County.

As you come through the gate, the first thing you will notice is an iron stand with 13 American flags. The flags were always in good shape, and we can thank the late Malcolm Smith from Lake Tranquility, Green’s longtime tax collector, for that. He would change them regularly.

These flags are there in memory of the veterans buried in the cemetery. I was told that years ago, a flag was placed on each veteran’s grave, but that over the years, the location of the graves was lost so now we have the 13 flags.

Glenn Wershing found a list of 11 veterans buried here and it includes their names. Eight served in the Civil War and three in the War of 1812.

After you pass the flags, there is, to the right, a wrought-iron fenced-in area surrounding the Hill plot. Directly behind that are Vails, and behind the Vail graves are the Youngs and the Buchners, some of the oldest graves in the cemetery. This area was renovated by Dr. Warren Warbasse, a descendant of the Hill family.

There are many gravestones still standing, a lot are on the ground, some are partially buried and some may be totally buried. Some are leaning and some are broken. There are many footstones that indicate the height of the deceased.

There are also many stones/rocks in with the gravestones. None have been moved or removed because they may be markers.

As you walk through the cemetery, you can see the sunken recessed areas of unmarked graves that are aligned with the indentations of the graves with headstones.

It has been written that some railroad workers and possibly slaves are buried in unmarked graves and that they are in the southern corner of the back section of the property.

A few years ago, Ryan Holzhauer cleared the back section as an Eagle Scout project, and one day someone may try to locate these graves.

Before 1865, burials in Huntsville took place on this land when it was private property. In 1865, five residents of Huntsville, the trustees, incorporated the Huntsville Burial Ground and purchased two parcels of property that would be the Burial Ground: 1/8 of an acre from Lewis and Jane Willson for $1 and 1.12 acres from James Titman for $1. This information came from Dick Stevens.

If you take a walk through the cemetery, you will notice that it is very difficult to read most of the names and information on the headstones.

Three lists including the names of 132 people have been found.

The first list from Bill Morris - and the same list from the county library - has 57 names and several unidentified “cut-off” workers. No stones.

Second list from the website rootsweb.com has 94 names.

The third and most complete list from the New Jersey Historical Society has 110 names.

Benjamin Franklin said: “To know the character of a community, I need only to visit its cemeteries.”

Bill Truran, Sussex County’s historian, may be contacted at billt1425@gmail.com