GREENFIELD — Phil Wartel wants to reinvigorate the Green River Cemetery.
The Green River Cemetery board has launched the Green River Cemetery History & Preservation Initiative, which Wartel said is aimed at renewing local interest in documenting and researching the cemetery’s history, and furthering preservation work.
“Our focus is on transparency, responsible stewardship and building a sustainable path forward,” the board shared in a statement. “Green River Cemetery is an important part of our community’s history, and we are committed to caring for it with the dignity and respect it deserves. Community involvement is essential to that mission.”
The Green River Cemetery on Wisdom Way was established in 1851 to address a need for more gravesites, as the space in the Federal Street Cemetery was “exhausted,” and a cemetery on Miles Street needed to be closed to make room for the construction of the railroad. At least 60 pre-1830s graves were relocated from the Miles Street burial yard to the new Green River Cemetery.
Wartel has been a member of the board since January, though he has been going to the cemetery to clean gravestones and tidy up for years, as his parents, as well as several friends and neighbors, are among the more than 12,000 interred there.
“I thought maybe I can bring new ideas and new energy moving forward,” Wartel said. “It’s been very positive.”
Wartel said the board has a limited budget and volunteer base to maintain the 58-acre cemetery, and he hopes that getting more people interested in the property’s historical significance could lead to more help. Green River Cemetery is an independent charitable organization and is not funded by the city of Greenfield. Rather, it relies on plot sales, donations and volunteer support.
“They have such a limited budget, it’s hard to maintain it to the degree I think it should be,” Wartel said. “There’s major maintenance issues that need to be addressed.”
To drum up excitement about the cemetery, Wartel and the board recently launched the Green River Cemetery History & Preservation Initiative, a Facebook group that now has more than 100 members. In the group, Wartel said he shares stories about people who are buried at the cemetery and volunteer opportunities.
“There’s a lot of history up there,” he said. “There’s a lot of interesting people up there, as well as people not as well-known who have really interesting stories.”
Among the thousands of people interred at the Green River Cemetery are William B. Washburn, who served as governor of Massachusetts in the 1870s; James Deane, a 19th-century paleontologist credited with discovering the first fossilized dinosaur footprints in the Connecticut River Valley; as well as members of prominent Greenfield families such as John Russell, who founded the J. Russell & Co. cutlery works.
In one recent post to the Facebook group, Wartel wrote about Robert P. Lahey, a Purple Heart veteran from Greenfield who died in 2009. Lahey served in the Vietnam War and was also awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the U.S. Army.
Last weekend, Wartel led his first grave-cleaning demonstration, in which he showcased the tools and process to a small group. He uses water, a variety of soft-bristle brushes and scrapers, and a few chemical solutions to remove biological growth, like moss, from the headstones.
“The point of cleaning isn’t making them look like new again, it’s making them readable,” Wartel said. “It’s really just elbow grease and patience.”
Wartel demonstrated how to scrape off moss and treat the headstones with the chemicals by cleaning the grave of Sgt. Peter Maniatty, an Army flight engineer who died in 1948, three days after his 31st birthday.
Phil Wartel pours water on the headstone of Sgt. Peter Maniatty in the Green River Cemetery. Credit: MADISON SCHOFIELD / Staff Photo 
Phil Wartel brushes moss off the headstone of Sgt. Peter Maniatty in the Green River Cemetery. Credit: MADISON SCHOFIELD / Staff Photo 
Phil Wartel sprays D2, a biological solution used to remove mold, mildew, lichen and air pollutants from granite, marble and limestone, onto the grave of Sgt. Peter Maniatty in the Green River Cemetery. Credit: MADISON SCHOFIELD / Staff Photo
Wartel’s foray into grave cleaning began a few years ago, when he decided to clean the headstone of his parents, Murray Wartel and Arlene Cramer Wartel.
After cleaning their headstone, he noticed another one a few rows back belonging to Robert Reid that was stained and needed to be cleaned. Wartel had known Reid when he was a child and asked the family for permission to clean it, beginning a journey that has led to close to 50 headstones being cleaned over the past few years.
Wartel said that in the future he would like to explore grant opportunities that could fund purchasing equipment and restoring gravestones that are falling over. He added that he thinks it’d be great if the chapel on the property could be restored to the point where it could be used for weddings, funerals or history talks.
He would also like to plan walking tours of the Green River Cemetery and get more volunteers to “adopt a gravestone” to care for, but he noted those efforts are still in the early stages. Ultimately, Wartel wants to see more community members invested in preserving the cemetery, whether it be by cleaning headstones, trimming bushes or documenting the site’s history.
Volunteer opportunities also include photography, genealogical and historical research, writing biographical stories of those interred, contributing skills in grant applications and fundraising efforts, and helping with website design and maintenance.
“I really see it as a community effort,” Wartel said. “It’s an important resource for the history of Greenfield.”
To learn more about volunteer opportunities, email info@greenrivercemetery.org.
