Eagle Scout documents Forty Fort Cemetery’s “Old Yard”

Visitors to the Forty Fort Cemetery’s “Old Yard” are bound to walk by the graves of some of Luzerne County’s most interesting characters.

They might see the grave of Charles Denison, a lawyer and Congressman who served in the House of Representatives from 1863 to 1867. Or of architect Thomas Henry Atherton, who many believe was the designer of the Market Street Bridge in Wilkes-Barre. Or his son, Charles, the former secretary of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.

There are more than 1,000 graves in that section, and thanks to the hard work of a local Eagle Scout, many of their names will be easier to find — and their stories easier to tell.

Aaron Girvan, a 17-year-old Wyoming Valley West student, has been working to properly map out the Old Yard for three years, but he was on the track to become an Eagle Scout for much longer. He started as a Cub Scout while he was in elementary school, and gradually worked his way through the ranks.

By 2021, he was ready to become an Eagle Scout.

What he didn’t realize was his Eagle Scout Service Project would take three years to complete.

“I think the fact that I stuck with it after three years just shows that I have some sort of dedication, and I don’t want to just half-do something. I want to actually complete it,” said Girvan.

Girvan said he lives close to the Forty Fort Cemetery, so the site was a natural fit for his project. His passion for Forty Fort’s deep history, as well as his own family genealogical projects, were a source of inspiration along the way.

“If you live in Forty Fort, this cemetery is a part of you,” Girvan said.

The project was, in essence, to map out the exact locations of each burial in the Old Yard. To do so, he used geographic information system (GIS) mapping tools, took aerial and ground level photographs, and kept detailed records.

Some of the names and dates on the graves required merely a look with the naked eye. Despite their age, quite a few of the Old Yard’s graves can still be read.

Other determinations were trickier. Girvan combed through interment records and had to go letter-by-letter on weathered or broken graves. From there, he was able to deduce the names and/or dates for some of the more damaged stones.

And others, unfortunately, could not be identified. In the records compiled by Girvan, these cases are marked as “Unknown.”

To keep things organized, Girvan developed two major resources. One was an aerial map that segmented the Old Yard into around 200 distinct sections, or “lots.” The other was a spreadsheet — now a booklet — where Girvan kept track of each stone’s critical details.

Cemetery history

The Forty Fort Cemetery is a historic area. Aside from being the burial ground for thousands of people — approximately 1,500 people are buried in the Old Yard alone — the cemetery is also known in more modern times for the significant damage it sustained during Hurricane Agnes in 1972.

But the Old Yard, while not completely unscathed by Agnes’ wrath, was relatively protected from the flood waters. The section sits in the southwest region of the cemetery, and is the area most geographically tied to the old Forty Fort Meetinghouse.

A number of the graves in the Old Yard predate the Meetinghouse’s construction in the early 19th century.

Girvan noted that a few of the graves list death dates as being in the 1790s, but that might not even tell the full story. Local historians who Girvan consulted during the project’s development speculated that the land encompassing the Old Yard could have been used as a burial ground as early as the 1750s, before the founding of Forty Fort.

A unique service project

During a clean-up event at the cemetery, before the project had commenced, Girvan heard a conversation related to the lack of record-keeping associated with the cemetery. His idea for the service project developed from there.

Girvan’s project is for the benefit of families and visitors to the Forty Fort cemetery — and for the cemetery’s caretaker, Bonnie Baker. These goals culminated in something more complicated than the typical Eagle Scout Service Project.

“Usually, Scouts will just build benches, they’ll paint fire hydrants,” Girvan explained, adding that this project was “unique.”

Girvan’s service reflects his respect for the cemetery and the people buried there.

People like James Bird, whose detailed burial inscription tells of his heroic rise and dramatic fall during the War of 1812.

People with the surname Swetland, which is most often associated with the Swetland Homestead, one of the Wyoming Valley’s most iconic and historic structures.

And ordinary people with ordinary lives, whose stories were lost to time.

“The thing with cemeteries is that they’re supposed to be monuments to the people that have died and are buried there,” said Girvan. “But when the stone is lost or it’s weathered, the purpose vanishes. … Doing this project is an act of historical preservation, so that if something does happen to these stones, there is a record of them.”

The results of Girvan’s project will eventually be available at fortyfortcemetery.org .