Sources and Criteria

Cemetery Name: Names come from a variety of sources.

AKA: Some of these sites go by several different names and we are always willing to add more.

Number of Stones: In most cases the # of stones is only an estimate. Further attempts will be made to make these more accurate

Dates of Activity: Based on sources of written info and earliest visible stones.

Tax Map #: These come from the tax maps held at the Centre County Tax Assessment office in Willowbank Building in Bellefonte. Some info was also obtained from the Recorder of Deeds office at the same general location. Mapping the sites was a slow process involving a Centre County Road Names Map, a 1:24,000 scale USGS map of Centre County, the Plats Grange maps, and the Centre County Tax Maps. The USGS map used for the project will be kept at the Centre Furnace Mansion.

Early on in the project the intention was simply to record the condition for many of the sites which were in good or excellent condition. There was no intention of building a website. Over time, we will try and photograph each site for the collection.

Caretaker: Caretaker information comes from local funeral homes, the tax assessment office, signs posted at the cemetery, and newspaper articles.

Land Owner: In almost every case this information comes from the tax assessment office.

Directions: Most of thes directions come from:
Centre Co., PA Graveyards

Overall Condition: This is an abbreviated way of keeping track of each site in an orderly fashion.

• Excellent = perfect, well groomed, straight
• Good = well groomed, some stones beginning to lean or broken fences or signs
• Fair = mowed, but some broken stones and some fallen stones
• Poor = not mowed, trees and shrub overgrowth, several broken and fallen stones.

Historical Status: This goes hand in hand with both policy, preservation and personal bias. At times it seems a bit confusing but here is a general way of thinking about some of the elements consideredt:

• If it is felt that the site meets the state or national definitions of Historical Burial Ground that will be mentioned and little else. In most cases where National defintions are mentioned, it is usually referring to Criterion C of the National Register. This is the broadest of criteria but typically (in this case) that the site is fully representing a given community and showing transitions and seriations through time due to cultural changes. In a preservation ethic, all of the interred have a story to tell, and there are many biographies of important Centre County residents which have never been written.
• If the site is still active, that is simply stated. Here we run into the same problems which the National Register runs into with burial sites. If the site is still active, its primary function is as sacred ground for some people. Its historical importance becomes secondary and it is up to the caretakers and owners to decide the issues surrounding a site's historical place.
• If a site is No Trace, this means that it has lost all of its original historical integrity, and that its historical importance is now in its original position as it might have related to its surroundings and the written record which gives testament to its existence.

Preservation Recommendation: These are only recommendations based primarily on the visual inspections of a site. What a site may or may not need in terms of preservation, restoration or conservation can change dramatically in a short amount of time.
Typically each site falls into one of four general categories of what they require. These cateories can be found on the Centre County Preservation Page.

The general guides to these recommendations stem from various readings, lectures, and workshops on the subject.
Here are a listing of some great sources on the preservation of Burial Sites which have been used:

• Mayer, Lance. The Care of Old Cemeteries and Gravestones reprinted from Markers 1979/80.
• Baker, Joanne F. and Daniel Farber. Recording Cemetery Data. Association for Gravestone Studies, 1986.
• Farber, Jessie Lie. Recommendations for the Care of Gravestones. AGS, 1986.
• Boland, Beth M. and Elisabeth Walton Potter. National Regiter Bulletin #14: Guidelines for Evaluating and Registering Cemeteries and Burial Places. USDOI and NPS, 1992.
• Strangstad, Lynette. Preservation of Historic Burial Grounds. National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Other References:

• The CCGS status and Library Info comes from Centre Co., PA Graveyards
• The Centre Daily Times
• Gerbers, Ronald Wayne. The Country Cemetery as Cultural Epitaph: The Case of Penns and Nittany Valleys. M.S. Thesis in Geography @ PSU. 1979.
• Linn, John Blair. History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania. CCHS. repro of Louis H Everts: Philadelphia, 1883.
• Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage (cited where used)