2024 Year-End Update

By the numbers

$175,000 collected in our Stewards’ capital fund drive
This leaves only $75,000 to reach our goal of $250,000. The money will go to install a water line, construct a toolshed, finish the modern fence along the Western Prom, and repair five sections of historic wrought-iron fence.

1500 hours of volunteers’ work… and counting
This more than doubles the 600 hours volunteered in each of the past two years. It started with repairing the damage done to cemetery trees by the January and April storms and is ending with re-setting tippling heavy tablets and bases level with a tripod.

1132 biographies of the deceased
Kip DeSerres and his helpers search old newspapers and other sources to reconstruct the lives and patterns of those buried in the cemetery. He has determined that tuberculosis (then called “consumption”) was the most common cause of death in the mid-1800s. Also, that fifty-five percent of the Irish burials were children under the age of five.

100s of Black Swallowwort vines & Garlic Mustard plants removed
We are succeeding at pushing these invasives back.

126 monetary donors
Most of you donated after Stewards President John Funk knocked on your door. He is still at it! Thank you for your support!

89 grave markers repaired
For the first time this year, we have re-pinned marble tablets to their bases, cast new concrete bases where originals were missing, and re-mortared flattened tablets upright into their slotted bases.

73 grave markers cleaned
This ongoing work turns blackened marble encrusted with lichens into bright white headstones throughout the cemetery.

44 hours of professional gravestone conservation
Joe Ferrannini from Hoosick Falls, New York, returned for the third year in a row, with his mobile equipment and technical expertise. For instance, he raised and re-attached the cemetery’s only table monument, memorializing James Bradley. It involved a gantry, an aluminum frame, and six person-days of work.

41 new volunteers
Many came from the community groups listed below. And a regular cadre of volunteers is growing in skills.

27 tours given, every Sunday at 2 p.m.

7 city and neighborhood groups helped
The Portland Parks Conservancy, Maine Irish Heritage Center, Waynflete School (3 groups), BSA Scout Troop 1, First Parish Church, the Wild Seed Project, and Portland History Docents.

5 lowbush blueberries planted
We are hoping to establish varied low-growing natives in front of the hillside tombs.

2 grants received
Maine Medical and the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter have contributed to restoring the historic fence sections. The DAR also made a plaque for a Revolutionary War soldier and minister Elijah Kellogg, placed recently by city workers near the grave marker we repaired.

1 website created: WesternCemetery.ME
Donations can be made here. By the way, the ME domain name was chosen because it abbreviates the state of Maine. But in web-land it instead identifies a country. Can you guess which country? The answer can be found at the end of this article.

Events? In August, the Great Hunger Memorial in the Irish Catholic section was rededicated on its 25th anniversary by Bishop emeritus Robert Deeley with dozens of attendees. Also that month, a Life Scout oversaw a dozen Scouts cleaning stones as a project toward becoming an Eagle Scout.

Mysteries continue to arise. One unearthed gravestone bears the name of Henry P. Miller. But there is no burial record for him in Western Cemetery. There is another gravestone for him—and his wife, Abbie—in Mount Pleasant Cemetery across the bridge in South Portland. Why might that happen? We have a theory, to be found at the end of this article. A hint: He was a seaman.

The year is not over, and progress continues:

We borrowed a generator for the first time—thank you Kris Clark and Friends of the Western Prom—to jackhammer apart a large block of unwanted concrete. We have yet to use a generator to core out bent or broken pins from flattened tablets. But we now have the angle grinder and diamond-tipped coring bits to do that work, too.

Matt Cyr of Cumberland Ironworks may have already removed the rusted, bent wrought iron fence to his shop for repairs. Gorham Flag recently arranged to have the flagpole removed and stored until the toolshed is built. A new cost estimate for the toolshed is being prepared, which will allow the city to request contract bids.

Meanwhile, we are working with the city to place the water valves and pipes inside the toolshed once built.

Although new bases and mortar repairs require temperatures above 50 degrees and thus is ending, fundraising, research, excavation, grubbing out invasives, removing concrete patches and re-setting bases level can continue into the cold weather.

And, by the first of the year, the Western Cemetery should be on the National Register of Historic Places for the significance of its early geometric arrangement of family plots and concentric paths.

Thanks to all of you volunteers and supporters for making this a breakthrough year indeed!

The website domain? We registered the ME domain in the country of Montenegro because of its Pine State resemblance.

Our Henry P. Miller theory? If Miller died aboard ship at sea, he might have been buried in Western without a burial record. He was honored with another tombstone when his wife died in South Portland many years later.