HISTORIC GRAVESTONE CONSERVATION WORKSHOP ~ CONFERENCE INSIDER LOOK

Preservation Alliance of West Virginia is hosting the 2014 historic preservation conference, From the Ground Up, in Huntington, WV.  This allows us an opportunity to get down-and-dirty and do hands-on work in one of West Virginia’s most historic cemeteries – Spring Hill Cemetery.  Jonathan Appell, Monuments Conservator, will give a full-day workshop on Thursday, September 25, beginning at 9:00 am.  Participants will have the opportunity to help conserve cemetery monuments while learning new skills.

Jonathan Appell will give a full-day workshop on Thursday, Sept. 25th at the historic Spring Hill Cemetery in Huntington.

Jonathan Appell will conduct a gravestone conservation workshop at the historic Spring Hill Cemetery in Huntington, WV. Learn how to clean and level gravestones and monuments in historic and family cemeteries. The primary goal of the workshop is to educate the attendees in basic gravestone conservation procedures and techniques.

Jonathan Appell will give a full-day workshop on Thursday, Sept. 25th at the historic Spring Hill Cemetery in Huntington.

Emphasis will be places on a slow-working pace, describing all the actions as the treatments are conducted. The gravestones and cemetery monuments which are conserved will represent common preservation techniques, based on various conditions which are most often found in historic burying grounds. Participants will learn about materials needed, safe cleaning techniques, hands-on skills in resetting a tablet stone, joining broken gravestone fragments together, the pros and cons of epoxy, and replacing eroded or lost stone.

Damaged gravestone in Spring Hill Cemetery. Participants will learn to clean and level gravestones during the workshop.

The workshop will take place in the historic Spring Hill Cemetery – the oldest, most historic, large, publicly-owned cemetery in and about the city. Its heritage stems from the early 19th century. Along with being the resting place of one Confederate General, Albert Gallatin Jenkins, and one Union General, John Hunt Oley, Spring Hill Cemetery contains six Veteran sections. There is an African-American Veterans section, Soldiers Field, Soldiers Rest, the Union section, the Confederate section, and a newly-developed Veterans’ Companion section for Veterans and their spouses. Spring Hill Cemetery also represents many cultures and religious beliefs. Situated on the grounds’ northwest promontory is the Marshall Memorial dedicated in 1971 to those who passed away in the tragic 1970 Marshall football team plane crash.

To register for the conference, visit our EventBrite page.