photo by: Joselyn King

Volunteers at Peninsula Cemetery in Wheeling work to remove a central stone from a monument there that was damaged over the last century by moisture and freezing weather. The four-section monument will be reset once its base is releveled.

The goal of volunteers is to leave no tombstone overturned at Peninsula Cemetery in Wheeling.

They are also spraying the monuments and markers with a special chemical to make certain no stones – upright or uprooted -gather any additional moss.

A group of volunteers with the Ohio County Cemeteries Foundation could be seen Sunday morning using a tripod and hoist to lift a toppled stone that is the second tier of a four-tier monument belonging to military veteran Marcus Amick that was placed in the late 1800s. The upper two tiers could be seen lying close by the monument.

“We are resetting the stone,” explained Joni Morris, a cemetery preservation expert with the Americorps Preservation Alliance of West Virginia. “The top two pieces fell off because water gets between the stones.

“When it freezes and makes ice, no matter how heavy the stones are they can slide off — especially since this is on a bit of a grade.”

Once the base is leveled, the volunteers are going to set the monument’s stones back in place with the proper epoxy between them, and all four sections will be cleaned before they are restacked, Morris explained.

She noted the stone being lifted by tripod on Sunday weighed about 800 pounds, and the bottom stone over 1,200 pounds. The upper two sections laying off to the side each weigh over 500 pounds, she reported.

The 800-pound section was being extracted to make for less work for volunteers as they attempt to level the heavier base stone.

“It only needs to be moved an inch and a half to be level,” Morris continued.

Another monument being restored was that of Charles Fleming, a veteran of the Spanish-American War. In 1901, he was reportedly shot by a drunken fellow soldier when both were serving in the Philippines, according to cemetery researchers.

The stone had fallen off its base and was uprighted, according to Carla Tustin. Tustin and a second volunteer, Penny McConnell, have been researching and cleaning at the cemetery for more than five years.

McConnell has been working to develop a map of the cemetery, where a reported 10,299 graves are located.

Her work at the cemetery began when she came there in 2019 to help a friend locate a grave and discovered there was no all-inclusive map of where people are buried.

“I just thought it was terrible that there is no map and no records,” she said. “There was an attempt to find the original records, which appear to be lost.

“We found some records from 1905 to the present, and an incomplete map. My goal was to complete the map, which is almost finished.”

The cemetery was established about 170 years ago, but many of the graves were relocated there from other cemeteries and are actually older than the Peninsula Cemetery, McConnell explained.

Volunteers commended city employees for keeping the cemetery mowed, but there is not sufficient staff, equipment or expertise to do restoration work.

The Ohio County Cemeteries Foundation has been formed to assist in the maintenance and restoration of area cemeteries that are victims of neglect.

Those interested in participating should just “show up” at a cemetery, according to volunteers, or contact Wheeling Heritage at 304-232-3087, or Sharon David at sharon@pawv.org.