Headstones are vital bookmarks to history

On patriotic holidays like Memorial Day and Veterans Day, groups such as the Scouts as well as people who love their country converge at local cemeteries to replace the worn flags from the graves of American veterans.

It’s an observance that dates back to Decoration Day in 1868 when Union veterans decorated the graves of the war dead with flowers and southerners held similar observances to honor the Confederate war dead.

President Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, had a deep interest in preserving his legacy, and before his death he left explicit instructions regarding the monument to be erected over his grave.

He even supplied a sketch of the shape of the marker and how he wanted it to be inscribed.

Unfortunately, Americans don’t have the means to afford such an elaborate epitaph.

Growing up near a small cemetery in a rural area gave me an early appreciation of historic markers. This eventually grew into my passion for American — particularly military — history.

To historians, cemetery headstones are important bookmarks and timelines to history.

The small cemetery on my uncle’s former farm has 35 identifiable burial plots. When he and his wife were alive, they kept the grass cut and the headstones upright, but a number of the markers dating from the late 1700s were weatherworn and becoming hard to read.

The oldest grave marker in the plot was for Matthias Clausen Van Loon II, who was born Feb. 7, 1778, and died Oct. 22, 1860, at the age of 82.

To give that early date some historical perspective, Matthias’ birth came less than two years after the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain, the birth of freedom for our nation. Just a week after Van Loon’s birth, the U.S. flag was formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte rendered a nine gun salute to a vessel commanded by John Paul Jones.

Van Loon was only 2 weeks old when Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian officer, arrived at Valley Forge and convinced Gen. George Washington that he could train the Continental Army in European military formations and bayonet charges.

And on July 3, when Van Loon was 5 months old, British forces and Loyalist allies killed 360 American Patriots near Wilkes-Barre in what is known as the Wyoming Valley massacre. The battle site is only 13 miles from the final resting place for Van Loon, who was just 5 months old when the massacre occurred.

This is just one example of how invaluable the names and dates on headstones are to historians and preservationists. The rich history of the coal regions and the Poconos can also be traced if the stones are legible and maintained.

Last week I met Trae Zipperer, the president of By Memorial Day Inc., who’s raising awareness nationally and inspiring volunteers to venture out into their local cemeteries to find veteran headstones in need of cleaning.

His nonprofit — ByMemorialDay.com — organizes perpetual care for all veteran grave markers located outside national cemeteries. The National Cemeteries Administration is completing a protocol to post to their website instructing patriotic volunteers about how to properly clean a veteran headstone.

Historic cemeteries are an important part of our cultural landscape. One historian said that while cemeteries are often considered to be perpetual, their most prominent feature — the grave markers — are not.

That’s what makes nonprofit groups like By Memorial Day Inc., which is dedicated to preserving and protecting grave markers, so vital.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com