It drizzled, was gray and slightly cold, but volunteers spent Saturday trying to spruce up the abandoned Old Macedonia Cemetery in Linden.
It was hard handwork. Power equipment wasn't allowed on the soft ground because of graves, some visible or marked and some not.
Several veterans are said to be buried in this Old Macedonia Cemetery, located on the west edge and next to the well-kept Linden Cemetery.
Apparently the site had been clear cut in the 1980s or 1990s, but that had only allowed the vines and undergrowth to become thick. And soon, with today's Macedonia Cemetery now located next to the long-established Macedonia Baptist Church and closer to town, the graves at the old site were abandoned.
That didn't keep 50 people from clearing with their hands at this old site.They tackled it fervently at 8 a.m. and seemed to enjoy the community effort.
"I don't even know many of these people out here," Linden Cemetery Association President James Penny said. "But they are working hard. I hope they have something to clean off the poison oak."
Penny, who had returned to Linden in recent years, had not known until recently that the Old Macedonia Cemetery was even here, he said. It was, indeed, covered up.
"When I connected with the cemetery association and wanted to do as much as we could to preserve these grounds as they had been by others for us, I discovered the area one day when mowing near the fence. Thereafter, we would make trails where needed to certain markers, but there wasn't a bigger effort until the history and heritage folk became involved."
Sam Higdon who is president of the Linden Heritage Foundation, said he is planning to attend a state preservation meeting soon to learn more about how to identify, preserve and gain a historical marker for cemeteries.
"If we can't prove it's the Old Macedonia Cemetery, we can just have a plaque which says it was known as the cemetery. Otherwise, we hope to have the fence taken down separating the two cemeteries, an archway built, the grounds improved and a stone historical marker," he said.
The volunteers in the cemetery Saturday were supplemented as they have been on several different occasions by workers from the county who were working off community service hours as required by the local courts.
These helpers have given exceptionally positive help, not only here but also at a similar cleanup day around the town's historic water tower and old firehouse, said Joe B. Lovelace, a board member and leader of the Linden Heritage Foundation.