A project several years ago spearheaded by local historians Gary and Nancy Norris resulted in most of the known small cemeteries being recorded, cleaned and marked.

In the years since that project was completed, many of those small gravesites have once again become overgrown and hidden, but through the efforts of Clinton County employees and Clinton County Jail prisoners, the worst of the neglected cemeteries are once again being attended to.

Clinton County Judge/Executive Richard Armstrong told the Clinton County News last week that he is using the county road employees along with a handful of Clinton County Jail employees in small work details to clean and remove brush from the worst of the overgrown areas that are reported to his office.

Recently, a crew of four – two county road department employees and two prisoners, worked most of a day cutting and clearing neglected overgrowth from a small cemetery in the Upchurch Community of central Clinton County.

The detail saw the cleaning of the Bristow Cemetery located on the Jimmy Fox Upchurch farm, just off of State Garage Road.

Several of the graves in the Bristow Cemetery included dates that were pre-Civil War era and many of the graves, in addition to the headstones, also included large hand cut limestone slabs that had been cut in the shape of the coffin that rests below.

Armstrong said he hopes to be able to continue using small crews when scheduling permits to work on additional cemetery locations that have been allowed to become overgrown.