Waynesburg student working to restore old cemetery, research genealogy
David O’Donoghue, 22, of Waynesburg, will be working during his senior year at Waynesburg University to restore the old Hill’s Schoolhouse Cemetery that sits off of Route 21/18 near the Waynesburg University baseball fields.
A headstone at Hill’s Schoolhouse Cemetery off of Route 21/18 near Waynesburg.
An obelisk at Hill’s Schoolhouse Cemetery near Waynesburg.
Hill’s Schoolhouse Cemetery is located off of Route 21/18 near Waynesburg.
WAYNESBURG – David O’Donoghue remembers while growing up passing the Hill’s Schoolhouse Cemetery on the way from his Waynesburg home to his family’s Eastview church every Sunday.
“This site has been in my imagination since childhood,” he said.
Now, years later, as O’Donoghue prepares to graduate this spring from Waynesburg University with a history degree, he wants to spend his final semester working to clean up the cemetery that dates to the 1800s and sits in a small plot of land off of Route 21/18 near the university’s baseball diamonds.
“I saw the need and wanted to do something about it,” he said. “The stones and grave markers were in pretty poor shape and a few of them have been moved from their original locations. It just looked like it had not been cared for.”
William Batchelder, an assistant history professor and the director of the honors program at Waynesburg, said the cemetery, which is now owned by the college, was “primarily the Hill family’s graveyard.”
O’Donoghue said the cemetery has 35 burial plots and more than half of them are in need of repair.
“The last interment I believe was in 1885,” he said. “The two Hills buried in the cemetery, I believe, are the oldest interments there.”
O’Donoghue’s project began over the summer when he asked the university’s maintenance department if the history department could take over the grounds-keeping responsibilities at the site. Waynesburg’s honors program will also sponsor a workshop March 18 on how to restore and repair grave sites, led by Robert Myers, of the Gravekeepers of Pennsylvania.
“He’ll teach us how to care for the property, how to recognize problems with grave markers, how to clean them, reset those that maybe leaning or at risk and those that have toppled over and how to repair those that have broken or fractured,” O’Donoghue said.
Several history students from the college are expected to participate in the workshop so they will be able to help O’Donoghue restore the graveyard properly.
“This is going to be a project that will extend into the next semester,” O’Donoghue said. “I’m going to be working with other students to kind of pass the torch on this so the project can be finished even after I graduate.”
While O’Donoghue is restoring the cemetery, Waynesburg professor Karen Younger will teach a history class where students will learn and research personal histories and genealogies of the families buried in the cemetery, the history of the site and property, “as well as monument surveys, assessments and a study of the artwork of the monuments,” she said.
“We know very little about the site, in terms of who’s buried there and their families,” Younger said in an interview. “So, we’re actually quite excited to find out who these people are and how it was passed on.”
She said those class projects will begin within the next two weeks.
“I hope students will come away with a feeling of great satisfaction knowing that they served the surrounding community by caring for the final resting place of over two dozen men, women and children,” Younger said in a written statement.
O’Donoghue, who plans to attend graduate school to become a historian, will receive points towards his honors program for the project.
“He’s one of our best students,” Batchelder said. “This was entirely his idea. I didn’t even know the graveyard was there.”
Batchelder said O’Donoghue has always been involved with the history club and other extra-curricular activities on campus while keeping up “outstanding” grades.
“I’ve been so pleased to see him taking on this responsibility,” Batchelder said. “We’ll continue working on this thing until it’s done.”
Community members with information about individuals or families buried at the site or old photographs of the cemetery that could aid the students in their research are encouraged to email O’Donoghue at odo1639@student.waynesburg.edu.