Naval aviators are superstitious when it comes to flying over graveyards: it is considered taboo and should be avoided. At least, that is what naval tradition maintains. This may or may not be one of the reasons why, in 1942, the Patuxent Naval Air Station Command decided to bury a 150-year-old graveyard located on the base east of Lexington Park, Maryland. Whatever the reason, the current Naval Command has authorized Scott Lawrence of Grave Concerns, with assistance from GAC, and the St. Mary's County Genealogical Society, to (voluntarily!) restore the graveyard.

The graveyard, however, suffered a different fate. Workers conducted a survey of all the known graves on the site and produced a map depicting 320 grave locations and stone inscriptions. The surveyed graves had either stone, wooden, or iron markers—not all were marked. The stones were then laid flat and covered over with several inches of soil and sod, possibly because they were deemed too unsightly and in too prominent a location. The site has been undisturbed since that time and if you had visited the Naval Air Station a few years ago, you may have spied the Base Chapel atop a grassy hill shaded by leafy sycamores and dense cedars—and no grave markers—a significantly different appearance from what one would have seen 60 years earlier. In 2003, St. Mary’s County native Scott Lawrence began searching for the burials of his ancestors. Armed with his grandfather’s memory of the St. Nicholas graveyard, his search ensued in an all-out volunteer effort to accurately document and restore every gravestone. Volunteers provide brawn and ingenuity to reposition larger stones (above left); though the uncovered stone material is well-preserved (above right), many are highly fractued; these stones are restored with as little change as possible (below)

Project manager and volunteer Scott Lawrence aims to honor all who are forgotten in St. Nicholas Cemetery

Mr. Lawrence teamed with archaeologist Jim Gibb, and together, they rely on experience, ingenuity, and doggedness to locate, record, and restore markers. Headstones, footstones, plinth stones, and iron crosses, located as much as a foot under the surface, are located using the 1942 map and surveying equipment.  Once the edges of the marker are located using a soil probe, volunteers uncover the marker using a shovel (for turf only!) and a mason’s trowel. The marker and its inscriptions are then recorded and photographed. Using levers, pulleys, wits, and care, the stones (sometimes weighing as much as one ton) are re-erected on their original sites. Given the nature of the soils, the stone markers are remarkably well-preserved and require only water and a scrub brush for the inscriptions to look freshly carved. Mr. Lawrence relies on donations to restore fractured stones and shattered tablets—a fairly expensive undertaking.

As of November 23, 2007, the team has re-erected 70 markers, repairing many and re-plumbing those that have settled over the course of several winters.

The project is far from over, as time, money, and effort are afforded only on a voluntary basis. Still, a little know-how and a lot of volunteer spirit go a long way! The cemetery, once effaced and forgotten, is slowly resurfacing as an increasing number of markers dot the shady hillside marking the locations of its dead. Just as this Church and graveyard have served the communities of Cedar Point so too will Mr. Lawrence’s work as his research will be preserved for public benefit and the markers restored for posterity.