The Shadow
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) – Late Friday afternoons on Spruce Street in Morgantown are always on the bustling side.
There are all those students bounding by, on their way to the books, the bars, or both.
Even the cars seemed to scoot by in the afternoon one recent week with a little more urgency than usual, steered as they were to the driveway for the end of a busy work week – or the parking lot of that big-box store for some holiday shopping.
In a little courtyard behind First Presbyterian Church, however, all was quiet. It always is. That’s because Julie T. Berkshire already made her journey. On April 16, 1837.
George Hill laid his burden down in October of 1848. Dolly McCleary’s work was done on Jan. 11, 1850.
And Col. William McCleary, a Revolutionary War soldier and statesman who entered this life in 1741, made his final call to duty 80 years later, in 1821.
The above-mentioned tombstones are but a few of the ones incorporated into a wall at the church that had its beginnings on Oct. 21, 1788. The church was originally on High Street. The unique placement of the markers, church historians say, was a matter of both functionality and respect. The tombstones with names and journeys etched for eternity were part of a cemetery at the corner of Spruce and Forest streets that First Presbyterian had used from 1804 through 1881.
The 19th century segued to the 20th, and by the 1930s, the little cemetery had fallen into disrepair. A group of people who signed on with Works Progress Administration began cataloguing the markers in 1937.
First Presbyterian, meanwhile, continued to thrive. So much, in fact, that the congregation outgrew the church – and church elders made the decision to build a new worship place at the corner of Spruce and Forest, the site of the cemetery.
Plans were made to relocate the graves – descendants were notified through probate court – and the business of respectfully tending the remains was started.
“But the only thing that was left were just a few buttons and pieces of cloth,” the Rev. John Sonnenday said. He’s the co-pastor of the church. “Nothing else existed.”
