About S-WH's Gravestone Cleaning Workshops

Hands-on History: Caring for Farmington’s Oldest Gravestones

Along Main Street’s rise, beneath a faux-painted, sand-textured gateway that mimics the grand Egyptian Revival style of New Haven’s Grove Street Cemetery, Farmington’s earliest burying ground keeps its book of remembrance. By the time this gate was erected in the 1840s, the ground within was already nearly two centuries old and nearly full. Yet, townspeople honored their Puritan forebears with a monument that proclaimed in stark Latin: MEMENTO MORI — remember you must die. For Farmington’s founders, that admonition resounded across generations.

Stanley-Whitman House invites the public to join in stewarding that record through Gravestone Cleaning Workshops at Memento Mori Cemetery, led by preservation expert Ruth Shapleigh-Brown, Executive Director of the Connecticut Gravestone Network.

Each workshop combines learning, live demonstration, and guided practice. Participants first gain an understanding of gravestone preservation and the vulnerabilities of Connecticut brownstone—porous, soft, and prone to flaking—and marble, once white and fine-grained, now sugared by acid rain. Under Shapleigh-Brown’s instruction, attendees watch safe cleaning methods demonstrated step by step, then practice directly on historic stones using water, soft brushes, and patient strokes.

“It is quiet work, but deeply meaningful,” said Shapleigh-Brown. “When you see a name emerge from under soil and lichen, you are literally helping someone’s story become visible again.”

The gestures may be small, but their consequence is lasting. Gravestones are not merely markers; they are historical texts. Their epitaphs and imagery—winged skulls, soul effigies, urns, and willows—record shifting beliefs about death and memory from the 17th through the 19th centuries. Without care, those inscriptions fade, taking stories with them.

“These markers are not merely stones; they are documents in the landscape,” said Andres A. Verzosa, Executive Director and Curator of Stanley-Whitman House. “Every careful cleaning extends the life of an inscription and, with it, the life of a story. Stewardship like this lets the past keep speaking.”

Gravestone cleaning workshops run from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM. Materials are provided. Parking is available at the Barney Library which is a short distance away from the Memento Mori Cemetery.