The Newtown Historic Association and the Newtown Presbyterian Church will host a presentation of the history and restoration of the Old Presbyterian Church Graveyard and the Slack Cemetery followed by a guided tour of the restored headstones and footstones on Sunday, March 24th, 2:00pm, at the Old Presbyterian Church Graveyard, 76 N. Sycamore Street, Newtown.
The Old Presbyterian Church Graveyard had fallen into considerable disrepair over the years, so the Newtown Presbyterian Church hired the Keystone Preservation Group of Doylestown to complete a survey of the grave markers in the Historic Church Graveyard.
The church members along with some community assistance, including the Boys Scouts, soon leapt into a 10-plus year project on their graveyard and the Slack Cemetery. This monumental project started off with the grit and determination of many volunteers to identify, clean, straighten, repair, and reset the headstones and footstones in the graveyard. Some of those volunteers soon became lovingly known as The Gravediggers.
While many are familiar with the history of the Old Presbyterian Church Graveyard dating back to the 1700’s, many are not familiar with the Slack Cemetery. The Slack Cemetery is a small plot, only about 30’ by 100’.
The Reverend Henry Martin and his wife Elizabeth (who was a Slack) are interred there. Rev. Martin was the first installed pastor of the Newtown Presbyterian Church (1754 – 1764).
And, in the Old Presbyterian Church Graveyard, there are currently 308 known plots with headstones, and those 308 plots represent 341 individuals with the earliest occurring in 1761.
Join Philip Winn, Brent Wiggins and Pam Allen, aka The Gravediggers, as they share the intimate history of this graveyard and firsthand accounts of the activities it took, like the use of ground penetrating radar (GPR), to complete this massive project.
For more information, visit https://www.newtownhistoric.org/event/general-membership-meeting-19/, or call 215-968-4004.