The History of Restoring & Preserving the Old Baptist Cemetery

The Boy Scouts Efforts (1978~1979)

Town Historian, Helen Burgio (1986~2009)

The Church of Jesus Christ and Later-day Saints (2002)

Erika Newcombe, Girl Scout Gold Award Project (2021~TBD)

GPR at The Old Baptist Cemetery (Summer 2025)

Hometown Heros Banquent (April 2025)

Taking on the feat of restoring such an old cemetery is great challenge and in the span of over a century, many groups have come in to repair the Old Baptist Cemetery.

Recorded Groups and Personas included in aiding in restoration over the years included

Unknown Committee commissioned to be built original fence around the cemetery (1813)
S.D Van Alstine Palmyra Historical Society (1915)
Milo Wilcoxen, Beth Rodenberger and others (1917)
Harriett M. Wiles (1936)
Helen Butler (Year Unknown)
Durfee Palmer (Year Unknown)
The Yorkers (Under Dave Taber's Supervision) (Year Unknown)
The Boy Scout Troop 167 & 166 (Late 1970's)
Palmer Durfee Pine Trees planted by Ed Bastian Sr. (Year Unknown)

Tom Kiesinger as Groundskeeper of the Cemetery (recorded for the 1990's)
Rosalie Gabbert and Helen Burgio (1990)
Marj Perez, Wayne County Historian (1991 & 1992)
Peter Henry (1997)
The Church of Jesus Christ and Later-day Saints (2002)
Rosalie Gabbert, Joe and Helen Burgio May (2009)
Tim Vienna
Linda Braun, Macedon Town Historian
Erika Newcombe Girl Scout Gold Award Project (2021-2024)
Newcombe Passion Project (2024 - TBD)

The Boy Scouts Efforts (1978~1979)

In 1978 local Boy Scout Troop 167 and Troop 166 led efforts to repair, document, and photograph the headstones in the cemetery. They tilted the plan on documents as the "Brandon Rice Scout Project". According to a newspaper article dated 1979 from the Courier-Journal, Palmyra N.Y, "The Troop 167 work is thought to be the first at the cemetery since 1824."

There were ten Boy Scouts that undertook the task, and for privacy reasons, the boy's names will not be listed on this website. (If you would like to learn the names of the Boy Scouts, check out the newspaper article linked below) The leaders were Victor Lord, Admiral Lord, and Kenneth Aligers.

Before starting renovations in the Old Baptist Cemetery, the Troop of 167 worked on gathering information about the cemetery to both be prepared to hold the records and to earn their "Communications Merit Badge".

Newspaper image from "November 9th, 1979 Courier Journal, Palmyra N.Y Page 3"

Then after proposing their plan at a town board meeting, in October of 1979, the Boy Scouts and their leaders started the physical work at the cemetery.

In 2024, Erika Newcombe interviewed Brandon Rice, one of the Boy Scouts from the troop and learned that the Boy Scout troop were experimenting with new film and photography technology from Kodak [one of their parents who worked at Kodak] specifically designed to photograph headstones.

According to a newspaper article from the Courier Journal, Palmyra N.Y, "The scouts and their leaders erected fencing to protect the old graveyard..." The wire fencing the Boy Scouts put up replaced prior fencing and still stands today around the cemetery's perimeter. The boys also cleaned the headstones, placed some upright in cement bases, photographed, cataloged and mapped the location of the headstones. Most importantly the troop brought awareness to the Old Baptist Cemetery.

Some of the Photographs taken by the Boy Scouts

Bestey Brister Headstone

Enoch Gannet Headstone

Gitty M. Reah Hallet Footstone

Arena Drake Headstone

Helen Burgio standing near Anna Wilcox's Headstone.

(Photo from newspaper article from 2o02)

Mass Headstone

Town Historian, Helen Burgio (1986~2009)

Beginning in 1986, Helen Burgio, the current Macedon Town Historian at the time made it her mission to bring awareness and support to the Old Baptist Cemetery. In July, 2002 the "Courier - Journal" wrote an article regarding her efforts and the cemetery. Ms. Burgio had this to say when interviewed about the cemetery, "I've been after this for 17 years...It's been an obsession."

In August of the year 2000, Helen Burgio made a large impact on the cemetery and the community. The Macedon Town Historian gained a grant from the Hoffman Foundation to assist in paying for a cemetery monument [which is referred to as the mass headstone on the website]. The mass headstone Helen listed fifteen specific names with their death dates and ages. The names on the mass headstone include, Lemuel Spear, Barnabas Brown, Hannah Harwood, the two Scoville infants, Sally Stone, Hapsibella Putnam, Alexander Fish, Lydia Drake, Levi Wood, Miriam Hicks, Samuel Coon, Martha Brown, Nelson Lord, and Elizabeth Stebbins. The mass headstone also listed "5 unknown" as the last line of the engraving.

Mass Headstone in The Old Baptist Cemetery

Image from, "The Times," Newspaper, September 11th, 1990

Cemetery in the 1990s

It is recorded in documents seven years later after the mass headstone was placed in the cemetery, that Helen continued to commit to restoring the cemetery in 2009, where she and two other individuals under the names Rosalie Gabbert and Joe assisted Helen in taking pictures and recording the inscriptions on the remaining standing headstones at the time.

Helen worked over two decades to preserve the cemetery, and in that time she typed and collected dozens of records regarding the histories of the Old Baptist Church in Macedon, the cemetery, and the individuals connected to the church and buried in the Old Baptist Cemetery. To this day, her records are some of the best left for finding any information about the cemetery. The records were an asset to the 2021–2024 Girl Scout Gold Award Project.

The preservation of the Old Baptist Cemetery would not have been possible without Helen's love for the people and the history of Macedon. Rest in peace, Helen Burigo, 2012.

The Church of Jesus Christ and Later-day Saints (2002)

On July 16th, 2002, four missionaries from across four different states, conjoined together at at the Old Baptist Cemetery. According to a newspaper, COURIER JOURNAL, released on July 22nd, 2002, Missionaries RJ. Tomerline of New Mexico, Steve McRae of Homedale, Idaho, Michael Ballard of, California, and Jeffery Lee of Washington state, came together in order to repair the cemetery with the Town Historian at the time, Helen Burigo. The missionaries stayed and worked for a few days at the cemetery, working to cut down overgrown branches that were an obstacle to mowing the property and cleaning many of the fallen headstones.

Image from the Newspaper article about the The Church of Jesus Christ and Later-day Saints cemetery cleanup, July 2002

Erika Newcombe, Girl Scout Gold Award Project (2021~TBD)

She worked closely with her mother, Deanne Newcombe, who prior to the project, had a decades-long hobby of doing genealogy. It was Erika's mother who introduced her to the cemetery in late Fall 2021 upon finding the cemetery listed in some old documents.

Erika joined her mother as she drove alongside Quaker and Walworth Road looking for the cemetery, only for both women to end up empty-handed. After a while of searching from the road, Deanne and Erika approached the neighbors and asked them about a cemetery located in the vicinity.

The Newcombe women were directed to the Old Baptist Cemetery, which was [and remains] landlocked. The cemetery was hidden behind a wall of pine trees and growth and the entrance to the cemetery was narrow.

Erika and Deanne were ecstatic upon entering the cemetery. The cemetery land itself was nicely mowed and decently maintained upon their arrival. Approximately thirty-nine headstones were standing at the time while dozens were left in a pile at the corner of the lot.

Erika brushing off a headstone

The heartstrings of the Newcombe women tugged seeing the pile of the headstones [although the headstones were left there purposely to make the property easier to mow and maintain]; also, at the fact is seems that this cemetery was mostly forgotten in modern day. There was very limited information on findagrave.com and other genealogy websites despite the significance of the cemetery with eminent people such as David and Anne Wilcox, Hannah Harwood, Lemuel Spear, Levi Wood, to name a few.

Erika had already needed to find a passion project for her Girl Scout Gold Award at the time and believing that the cemetery should be restored and given more of a limelight, Erika took it upon herself, with the help of the community, to make restoring the Old Baptist Cemetery her Girl Scout Gold Award Project.

Quoted below from her mother, is Erika's response to seeing The Old Baptist Cemetery:

"Its so sad this cemetery has been forgotten about. It's so peaceful here and no one deserves to be completely forgotten." A moment of silence and thinking. "You know, people say all the time, I wish someone would do something about this or that, but they themselves won't do anything but complain. No action. I think we should. We should do something to make sure the cemetery isn't forgotten. Oh!" Erika's face lit up, "I have to do my Girl Scout Gold Award too! This would be a perfect project! Then nobody would be forgotten!"

For the next several years, Erika with the help of her mom, the Town of Macedon, and several volunteers, worked to bring awareness to the cemetery while going forth with the project with Girl Scout stimulations.

Finding Headstones

Deanne Newcombe digging up pieces of a broken headstone

Cleaning Headstones

Spraying with D/2 solution on David Carpartner's headstone

Gathering History

Erika holding up a headstone rubbing next to the headstone

Volunteer Clean up Day

(September 9th, 2023)

On September 9th of 2023, through the Girl Scout Gold Award 2021~2024, a community clean-up was planned to remove the brush, and overgrown vegetation and trim trees around the perimeter of the fenced-in cemetery.

Seven volunteers came to assist the cause on the cemetery grounds, even as the morning began dreary and it began to sprinkle soon into the cleanup. However, everyone persisted in working hard.

One of the volunteers was a gentleman who was related to the Wilcoxs'. Also, Scott Banker from, "The Cemeteries of Western New York Project," on Facebook, came out to help.

Working in the rain, the volunteers cleared out the brush and trimmed trees. This would allow the mower to have better access to cutting the grass and maintaining the cemetery. While cleaning around a lilac bush in the corner of the cemetery, a headstone was discovered that was not yet accounted for. The headstone had no writing on it; however, the headstone will remain where it was originally by the liliac bush.

On the Mark scanning the cemetery with GPR device

Discussing the cemetery restoration

GPR at The Old Baptist Cemetery (Summer 2025)

In the Summer of 2025 'On The Mark' ground penetrating radar company came to the cemetery to scan underground. On July 14 and 15th scans of the cemetery were done in four sections along with the perimeter of the outside of the cemetery on all four sides. The goal of their visit was to find headstones, which would be dug up, information taken from the headstone, photos and later repaired. Subsequently, the goal to mark burials spots.

After a couple of weeks of scanning and marking in and outside the cemetery 33 burials were found with the GPR, including 3 outside of the fenced in area of the cemetery, confirming theories that the cemetery is larger can the current half of acre that the cemetery is now. For context, the cemetery is said to measure 186 feet going North to South 118 feet going East to West, this equals to ½ an acre of land, but multiple records have stated that the cemetery is larger than these current dimensions. The scans proved this. The scans also gave the confirmation that there are burials where headstones are not there to mark the spot.

On The Mark came back on August 18th for rescans in certain areas.

Many volunteers came out to help clean up the cemetery before the GPR could be used. The volunteers helped to remove overgrown plants and move headstone pieces and fallen headstones that had yet to be fixed/set upright. Gone Graving (Parker Maybe) also served as a huge help during the cleanup. The town of Macedon did an incredible job of removing weeds, clearing invasive plants and cutting down small trees that could later damage the headstones.

Spray paint to show where something was found with the GPR

Headstone pieces being moved to scan area

'On The Mark' scanning

OTM with Deanne Newcombe

Broken headstones laid out

Sections marked and flagged

OTM scanning

Page from pamphlet made for the ceremony

Hometown Heros Banquent (April 2025)

On Saturday, April 25th, Macedon held a Hometown Heroes banquet to honor veterans from Macedon, from the Revolutionary War to the present day. The banquet was held at Crooked Pines Golf Club for the Macedon Banner Project. Senator Pamela Helming, along with Brian Manktelow was there in support.

The veterans being honored were granted banners with their names and service listed, along with their photos when available. Of the over twenty banners created, five were from the Old Baptist Cemetery. The following men were given banners that are scheduled to be displayed on Macedon's Main Street along Route 31: Private Ephraim Green, Corporal Jacob Spear, Sergeant Lemuel Spear, Private Aaron Brister, and Private Levi Wood.

Jacob Gannet (a Private) was also mentioned, and although evidence suggests that Jacob is buried in The Old Baptist Cemetery, there is no conformational documentation or headstone found. Where Jacob is buried is unknown.