Eagle Scout Project Brings Dignity Back To An Unused Cemetery

By Shannon Hicks

When Josh Fintz went looking for Flat Swamp Cemetery recently he couldn’t find it. He had directions and a general idea of where the old burying ground was located, but he couldn’t see it from the road and didn’t have much luck locating it on his own. So he called on a friend and had better luck.

“We had to climb through brush just to get onto a sort-of path that finally led us to the cemetery,” said the 17-year-old Eagle Scout candidate. Josh, along with a few dozen fellow Scouts (and some parents), spent four weekend days recently clearing out and bringing dignity back to the cemetery.

The Eagle Scout project has resulted in the restoration of an early 19th Century cemetery that has been unused for many years and all but forgotten by most town residents. The cemetery is located on Cemetery Road in the Dodgingtown section of town.

The earliest existing stone in Flat Swamp is that for Harriet Judd, who died October 21, 1812, at the age of 7. The latest burial was of Abraham Lyon, who died on December 13, 1901. Other family names represented are Barnum, Beardsley, Beers, Crofut, Hard, Hawley, Hull, Judson, Knapp, Lewis, Nichols, Platt, Shepherd, Simmons, Smith, and Wheeler.

Mimi Morin, who works at Booth Library (where Josh works part-time), was the one who suggested Flat Swamp Cemetery.

“I live around the corner from there and I do a lot of walking,” Mrs Morin said. “It had just been neglected and when he told me he was looking for a project, I mentioned the cemetery.

“I think people forgot it was back there,” she added. “People were dumping things on the side of the road, and then snow plows push a lot of stuff into the woods. We used to walk over there all the time with the kids though. It’s tiny, but it’s old.”

Unfortunately, Mrs Morin has been unable to get over to the cemetery to see what it looks like now that Josh and his friends have been there, but she’s looking forward to it.

Once he knew what he wanted to do, Josh’s first step was the create estimates for the length of time the project would take and come up with an estimate on what materials would cost.

“My financial estimates were on target, but the time was overplanned,” he said. “I thought it would take a lot longer.”

In the end, it took 19 hours to finish the project; Josh had figured on 22 hours — six hours to clear the entrance, another four to re-create the pathway, and then 12 hours to clean the cemetery itself. Part of the project was its planning, while another was to show that he can handle giving direction.

Approval for the project was granted on August 27, and Josh’s pack met the following night. Josh is a member of and Senior Patrol Leader for Pack 70, which meets on Tuesdays at Cullens Memorial. On August 28 he was able to announce his intention to clean up Flat Swamp Cemetery and asked for help.

Work began on Saturday, September 1.

“I called out the troops and had a few adults show up with power tools,” Josh said. “They chopped, mowed and weedwhacked the area. Then we bagged brush, did a dump run, and picked up a truckload of mulch.”

Granville Reed, the father of fellow Pack 70 member Jordan Reed, donated the wood chips used for the project and Ron Dufner, who runs Bethel Handyman, provided most other supplies, said Josh.

Help came from Josh’s entire family — parents Wanda and Mark and sister Rachel were all there for the first weekend — and many of the Scouts in his pack along with many fathers. Work crews averaged 16 people on that first weekend. The largest crew — 29 people, including Josh — showed up on Saturday, September 8, and then a group of eight workers returned to the cemetery on September 9 to finish the job.

“I was very happy with the turnout,” said Josh. “I’ve been told that my project drew one of the largest groups of Scouts in recent memory.”

On the first day the entrance to the cemetery was reestablished. The path was the focus of the work on Sunday, September 2. Work continued within the cemetery the following weekend. The one thing that was left unfinished after the end of working on the Eagle Scout project was roping that would guide visitors along the path from the road to the cemetery, but Josh was already planning to return to finish that.

Part of the project included cleaning the cemetery’s sign. Ironically, the sign was created in October or November 1998, when then-17-year-old Benjamin Champagne also took on the task of cleaning up Flat Swamp Cemetery. Nine years later, the sign was in need of a good cleaning so that became part of Josh’s plan.

Now a freshman at Western Connecticut State University, Josh joined Boy Scouts when he was in first grade and his family was living in the Bronx, where he lived for the five years of his life. His parents signed him up for a local Cub Scout pack, and aside from one year of not participating in Scouting activities when his family moved to Newtown about five years ago (while he got acclimated to the area, but knew he wanted to rejoin Scouting), Josh has been a Boy Scout ever since.

“I enjoyed it from the start,” he said. “I wanted to stay on.” He plans, in fact, to become a merit badge counselor.

Not every boy who joins a Boy Scout troop earns the Eagle Scout rank; only about two percent of all Boy Scouts do so. Nevertheless, the goals of scouting — citizenship training, character development, and personal fitness — remain important for all scouts, whether or not they attain the Eagle Scout rank.

“He’s a great kid,” said Mimi Morin. “I’m proud of him. He was having such a hard time coming up with a project. It was the first thing I thought of and he got very excited about it. I made that suggested and he just ran with it. The next thing I knew, it was all finished.”

The cemetery has had some of its grandeur returned to it thanks to the hours spent cleaning it and repairing its sign. Now Josh waits while his work is put before a board of review, and hopefully gets signed off on. He still has one more Eagle Merit badge to earn, but he is well on his way to becoming one of Newtown’s next Eagle Scouts.