MORGANTOWN — Longtime 1st Ward resident Margaret Roberts may have summed it up best when she wrote, “A walk through the original Oak Grove Cemetery is a walk through the history of Morgantown and Monongalia County.”
She’s right.
Nationally significant figures like Waitman T. Willey and Alexander Wade are interred there, as are the original owners of a list of names recognized today from local street signs, neighborhood landmarks and university buildings.
So when Roberts, her husband, Mike, and their friends on the 1st Ward Neighborhood Association started digging into the history of their beloved slice of Morgantown, the original 8.5-acre burial ground off Dorsey Avenue quickly became a focal point of their work.
But the closer they looked at Morgantown’s oldest existing cemetery, the more their curiosity became tempered by concern.
“You start to notice the disrepair and all the stones that have fallen over. We’re going to lose them. We’re going to lose the inscriptions if we don’t work at it. That’s how we got together on it. We both had a natural interest in the history of that cemetery,” Roberts said of stumbling across Janet DeVault during one of her research sessions.
DeVault has a very particular set of skills obtained over time by seeking out training sessions on the restoration of monuments.
As you might imagine with a hobby like that, she also has a passion for preserving history, explaining the condition of a city’s cemeteries are a direct reflection on the city and its people.
“So we learned how to maintain a cemetery monument, but also how to repair and put pieces back together. So myself and a few other interested persons formed a group in Morgantown called Monument Cleaning and Repair. We have a Facebook page, and we just basically go out and clean on request, or for fun and to rejuvenate the stones if we don’t have requests at the time,” DeVault said, explaining she often works with a partner, Robyn Lindamood.
“We’re just volunteers, so we accept donations only. We don’t have a fee for training or coming out to help out … We were trained and we like doing it, so we try to help others do the same thing.”
Recently, DeVault and a group of volunteers made up primarily of 1st Ward residents took on their first marker leveling and restoration projects in the old Oak Grove Cemetery.
Roberts said she’s hopeful the effort will continue over time.
“We do hope it will be ongoing,” she said. “We may need to set up a funding device because right now, each of us just brought a bag of materials, so that’s how we funded it. So, we may need to get some funding sources, but we’re interested in pursuing this. Hopefully, as the word gets out, it will snowball.”
According to information compiled by the Monongalia Historical Society, the original Oak Grove Cemetery was established in 1865 on land purchased from Sen. Waitman T. Willey by a cemetery association formed by Willey, his wife and several colleagues dissatisfied with the condition of Morgantown’s cemeteries.
The first actual interment was the reburial of Willey’s daughter, Mary Ellen Casselberry, who died in 1861 and was originally buried in the rose garden of their Chancery Hill home.
“I just think it’s so important that we preserve things like the Oak Grove Cemetery,” Roberts said. “People go on great pilgrimages to visit cemeteries and learn about history, and here it is, right in our neighborhood.”
Anyone interested in volunteering for a future restoration session at Oak Grove Cemetery, or inquiring about Monument Cleaning and Repair, can find additional information on the group’s Facebook page.
