By JACK DOBBS, Bowling Green Daily News

BOWLING GREEN — On a Thursday afternoon 160 years after burials at Pioneer Cemetery ceased, a group of volunteers was busy cleaning up the small cemetery, taking plant growth off of gravestones and repairing some that were toppled over.

The preservation efforts came from a mix of volunteers, the Landmark Trust and a company called Atlas Preservation, which specializes in cemetery work.

“Every site is different and has unique problems,” Atlas CEO Jonathan Appell told the Daily News at the cemetery. “This site doesn’t have a lot of variation, and that is due to the narrow timeframe that this was an active cemetery.”

Several dozen volunteers were present at the cemetery Thursday. Appell said the cleaning process “is pretty straightforward;” since the stones are made of porous rock, moisture gets lodged in them and leads to the growth of microorganisms.

“Most older sites like this tend to have more marble, but there’s a regional variation (here) because you had sourcing for limestone,” Appell said. “It’s very porous, so there’s a tremendous amount of growth that’s under the surface.”

Appell said the stones are also harmed by pollution. Acidic compounds in rainfall and in the air corrode the limestone, making the inscriptions gradually harder to read over time.

A cleaning solution was sprayed onto the headstones to kill plant growth and the stones were then scrubbed to take off moss, lichen and other microorganisms. The solution is activated by water, meaning when it rains, it will keep plant life from coming back.

Records on the early history of the cemetery are sparse, with the first burial believed to have come around 1811. Cathy Maroney, cemetery division manager for the City of Bowling Green, said burials took place up until 1864, when Fairview Cemetery opened.

She said by the early 1900s, the small cemetery in downtown Bowling Green fell into disrepair.

“Whoever was in charge back then didn’t take care of it, so a lot of (graves) didn’t have stones,” Maroney said.

Pioneer marks the final resting place for many of Warren County’s early prominent residents, and many enslaved people were also laid to rest there, along with veterans of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Civil War.

She said Pioneer Cemetery was also the first home of the Presbyterian Church, which first opened its doors there during a period of religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening.

Maroney described the work done Thursday as more of an “educational session on preservation” than just a cleanup effort. She said down the road, the Cemetery Division hopes to partner with Landmark to continue restoration of the cemetery.

“Our goal is to partner with preservation organizations or historic organizations on volunteer efforts to help restore” gravestones, Maroney said. “We’re not going to be fixing or replacing rock. We can’t come in and replace it. We’ll just fix what is there.”

She said work like this may come in the fall during her division’s off season.

By Appell’s estimate, many of the volunteers working in Pioneer Cemetery on Thursday came from outside Bowling Green.

“We do have a strong local component from within the city of Bowling Green or within 30 to 40 miles,” he said. “But, I would say at least half the people here traveled two or more hours. It’s amazing – it’s drawing people together.”

One distant visitor was Harry Reineke, who traveled around 650 miles to Bowling Green from Goldvein, Virginia.

Reineke said he was in Kentucky for the National Encampment of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War – taking place in Lexington – and made the trip to Bowling Green.

“For about 10 years now, I’ve done some low-level cleaning and grave resetting,” Reineke said. “Being in Virginia with so many old cemeteries that are in need of help, I want to be able to do my part.”