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Wednesday, Oct. 01, 2008

Scout restores ancient cemetery for Eagle project

Eagle Scout projects are usually time-consuming projects for a young man, but for one Scout in Marshallville, the project has turned into involvement for a lifetime.

Roch Gillmore, the son of Sandra and David Gillmore and a member of Troop 416 in Warner Robins, decided for his Eagle project he would restore a historic cemetery near his home.

To accomplish this, Roch had to coordinate efforts among the city of Marshallville, local churches, businesses and volunteers.

The cemetery, located off Ga. 127 in Marshallville, is unnamed, but for generations was the only cemetery in the area for black residents. It covers about three acres, and has about 400 graves that are marked and many more that are unmarked.

According to Roch, the oldest marked grave is for Eddie Miller, who lived from December 1889 to January 1891 and is buried next to two other children - Herman Miller, born in 1898 and who died four years later, and Terry Miller, born in 1907 and who lived only nine months.

"That right there shows the historical significance of this cemetery," he said. "This one family lost three children probably due to disease, and that is something that just doesn't happen anymore."

Judging from the dates on the graves, many people buried in the cemetery were born prior to 1861, and some that are not marked with dates may be even older. Roch said he thinks many of the graves are for former slaves.

The cemetery has 11 known military veterans buried in it, including combatants in World War I, World War II and Vietnam.

When Roch started his project, the cemetery had several trees that had fallen into it. At least one gravestone had been crushed and had the vault showing up from the ground.

Roch arranged for a local tree service to cut up the dead trees in and around the cemetery, about 25 in all.

"Not only did we get rid of the ones that had fallen but the ones that were about to fall into the cemetery," he said.

The Scout sprayed the entire three acres with weed killer and made benches for the cemetery. Volunteers helped remove debris accumulated from natural growth

All in all, it was a lot of work for a 16-year-old who had moved to Marshallville only about 18 months ago.

"I looked at some other different projects before starting this," he said. "Those were learning experiences for me. I wanted to do something different, a problem I could fix in my own community. The main goal of an Eagle project is to show leadership, but I wanted to take the opportunity to do something to benefit my community."

To raise money for his project, Roch spoke at five different churches in the Marshallville area.

"I think they knew I was serious about doing this," he said. "They were all very generous with the project."

But Roch still fell short of the $1,500 estimate he received from the Greathouse Tree Service in Perry to remove the trees.

That could have been the end to the project if it weren't for Harris Greathouse.

"I met with Roch at length and talked about what he was doing," he said. "He was compiling a list of those buried there, cleaning up the cemetery, really trying to restore it as much as clean it up. I admired him for taking it on and what he was trying to do."

Greathouse gave Roch a price considerably lower than normal for removing 25 trees and then made an offer to close the deal.

"I told him I didn't want the money to stand in the way of his Eagle Scout badge. I would go ahead and do the work and as he collected the money he could pay," the tree service owner said.

Greathouse shrugs off any praise for his generosity.

"I have always just tried to do the thing that was right. This was the right thing to do," he said. "This was a 15-year-old boy that had taken on something that not many young people would do. The more we talked, the more I admired him and wanted to help him in any way."

Even though Roch's official Eagle project is finished, he has no intention of walking away from the cemetery.

"I want to keep trying to improve the cemetery, get more people involved with it and maintain it," he said.