Amsterdam High School students and community members spent part of their summer helping preserve an important piece of local history at Green Hill Cemetery.
Over four workdays, members of the Junior Historic Amsterdam League, Historic Amsterdam League and community volunteers cleaned 61 markers in the cemetery’s Civil War Circle. Participants ranged in age from 6 to 89.
The Civil War Circle honors local veterans, including those who died during the war and those who returned home to Amsterdam. By cleaning and preserving their markers, volunteers helped ensure their names and service remain visible for future generations.
The Junior Historic Amsterdam League, or JHAL, is an Amsterdam High School club that works with the Historic Amsterdam League to provide students with hands-on opportunities to explore, preserve and share the history of Amsterdam.
Before beginning the work, volunteers learned how to determine whether a marker was safe to clean. They then used water, brushes, scrapers and appropriate gravestone cleaner to carefully remove decades of dirt and lichen. In some cases, names that had been difficult or impossible to read became visible again.
Among the discoveries was a small inscription near the bottom of a marble marker honoring veterans buried elsewhere: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Reading the dates on the markers also encouraged students to think more deeply about the people behind the names.
“Doing the math and seeing how young some of these men were was unsettling, but it opened up deep and personally challenging conversations I never would have had otherwise,” said Amsterdam High School senior Alex Garcia.
The project also gave students an opportunity to work alongside several generations of Amsterdam residents, sharing stories and getting to know members of the community. Each workday concluded with a picnic, reflecting a tradition from the late 1800s when Amsterdam residents often picnicked at Green Hill.
“My favorite part of working with the Historic Amsterdam League volunteers was how diverse the people in the group were,” said senior Edie Ravelo Pena. “It was really fun getting to know the other members of the club and working with them.”
“When you’re scrubbing, you’re also thinking,” said JHAL adviser Audrey Egelston. “Projects like this give our students a chance to discover what they can do, but they also give community members a chance to see that our students are kind, hardworking and genuinely fun to work with. We’re grateful to the Historic Amsterdam League, Green Hill Cemetery and the AHS administration for making that possible.”
JHAL members will continue their work with the Historic Amsterdam League this fall by volunteering with the organization’s annual Ghosts of the Past tour at Green Hill Cemetery in October.