Local Cemetery Conservation: Re-setting Multi-Piece Monuments

Multi–piece monuments are stacked stone pieces of different types and sizes placed together. They quite often rely on level ground and gravity to keep them standing and in place. Often they have metal pins, mortar, or some type of seal between their layers, but not always.

These series of videos were produced for the 2021 Local History & Historical Preservation Conference. The Wisconsin Historical Society partnered with monument conservator Jonathan Appell to cover the basics of cemetery preservation. Through a partnership with the Osceola Historical Society and the Mount Hope Cemetery Association, Jonathan demonstrates and performs treatments for the most common gravestone and monument preservation dilemmas, including cleaning, resetting tilted stones, and rejoining fractured tablet stones. The goal of these videos will be to give local cemetery staff or volunteers the knowledge to perform basic preservation procedures.

The workshop and these videos were produced by Valley Access Channels in Stillwater, Minnesota. Music credit: Storyblocks.com