Staff writer

chriscam@observer-reporter.com

When Covenant Life Fellowship church purchased property off Weirich Avenue, Canton Township, in the 1980s for a new building, an overgrown and forgotten cemetery was part of the 181/2 acres.

But thanks to a high school church member and other volunteers, the cemetery has been cleared of brush and weeds and the gravestones remarked.

The former Leet family cemetery is on property near the church on 55 Point View Drive. It also is known as the Old Weirich Cemetery. It is accessible from the rear of homes on Weirich Avenue or from the church by crossing a creek. A new footbridge over the creek was constructed by volunteers.

As part of his Boy Scout Eagle Scout award, church member Chris Malarkey of Washington undertook the job of cleaning the cemetery and marking the graves. Many of the stones were broken and lying in fragments.

He came upon the cemetery one day while walking with his pastor, Craig Bellis. Bellis said cleaning up the cemetery was something the church had wanted to do for years.

"I thought, 'This is an awesome project,'" Malarkey said and decided to pursue it for his Eagle award.

The property the church and cemetery are on was once part of 351 acres originally deeded to Issac Leet and known as Leet's Fancy.

Leet moved to the area from New Jersey in 1751. He and his wife, Rebecca, had 10 children. One son, Daniel Leet, served in the Revolutionary War under George Washington. An accomplished surveyor, he laid out the city of Sewickley and townships in Washington County. Another son, Jonathan, was the father of another Isaac Leet who become a state senator in 1834 and later a member of Congress until his death in 1844. He is buried in the Cooke graveyard in South Strabane Township.

But most of the Leets are buried in the cemetery, although more than half of the headstones were not visible when Malarkey began the project. The volunteers were able to locate 22 graves and remove moss covering the stones. Four by fours were pounded into the ground to mark graves.

In addition to the family name of Leet, they found stones indicating members of Dye and Clark families are buried there. A map drawn in the 1800s shows the Clark, Dye and Leet plantations all interconnected, so it is believed the families intermarried.

Today, Malarkey has placed a bulletin board at the entrance to the cemetery. It has a map of their plantation and a life history of the Leet family.

A son of Ella and Robert Malarkey, Chris is a senior at Washington High School and describes himself as a big history buff.

"It's cool to realize that I'm providing missing parts of history," he said.

Assisting him in the past five weeks were 10 people from the church and seven Boy Scouts from Troop 1103. The volunteers have worked in all kinds of weather and their enthusiasm surprised Malarkey's mother.

"We couldn't even get the kids to come down and eat that first day. When kids don't come down and eat, you know something big is happening," his mother said.

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