Cornish UT Cemetery

Cornish Cemetery, Cornish, UT [Intersection of UT 61 & UT 23 go west approx. 1 1/2 miles where road turns south procede south approx. 1/4 mile, cemetery is on west]
Date: Sat, 28 May 2005
From: "Kathleen Burnett"
To: UTCACHE-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: Cornish Cemetery
The following article was in the Herald Journal, Cache Counties Local Newspaper.
Memorial makeover
By Tyler Riggs
Eagle Scout project results in discovery at Cornish Cemetery

CORNISH --  When Chris Buxton started his Eagle Scout project, he found himself in a "grave" situation. Buxton knew there were headstones in the Cornish Cemetery that were knocked over many years ago, and he wanted to fix them by attaching them to a cement base. The 14-year-old North Cache 8-9 Center student started digging around the headstones last summer, and he found a surprise under each one. A few inches under the grass near the headstones sat small flower beds encased in metal. "We got digging down and we hit them," Buxton said. "We pulled one of them up, and it was there. They just got bigger and bigger." It turned out the metal boxes Buxton dug up used to sit at the base of several headstones at the cemetery. Buxton repaired 12 graves at the cemetery and found a metal box under each one. The scout project, which was originally meant to prop up some nearly 100-year-old headstones, turned into 60 hours of hard work. Buxton said he wasn't sure what the boxes were, but after asking around, he discovered they were basically a permanent container in which family members could plant flowers on their loved ones' graves. About 40 years ago, however, the containers were buried when grass was planted at the cemetery. Faced with a decision of whether to go forth with his original project of mounting the headstones to a block of cement and placing them at their original site, or refurbishing the flower beds, Buxton decided to put in the extra work. "We didn't know if we were actually going to leave them here and use them, but then we thought that since they were originally that way, we should probably put them back," Buxton said. The containers were not in very good shape after about 40 years underground, so Buxton said he took them to Logan Monument and had them sandblasted, which made them look good as new. With a dozen refurbished flower containers and headstones mounted on cement blocks to secure them in the ground, Buxton returned all of the grave markers to their original locations. "Everybody says this makes it look a lot better," Buxton said. "I think it was worthwhile." Ray Pitcher, sexton of the Cornish Cemetery, said he knows one person in particular who should appreciate Buxton's work come Memorial Day. Pitcher said he was recently contacted by a Lewiston resident who asked about an ancestor buried in Cornish. The woman told Pitcher that her ancestor's headstone was slumped over, and asked whether she could pay Pitcher to fix the grave site. At first, Pitcher told the woman it was her family's responsibility to maintain the grave, but then he found out it was one of the headstones repaired by Buxton. "She won't know until this weekend just how lucky she was," Pitcher said. "I think it was a wonderful project, and it's been a good addition to the cemetery." Pitcher said he thought Buxton had a unique Eagle Scout project. While some boys in the past have built park benches or done other things to contribute to places like cemeteries, what Buxton did went above and beyond. "I can't imagine anybody not being happy about this," Pitcher said. And many years down the road, Buxton will be able to look down the road from his parent's home toward the cemetery and remember that he did something special for his town's cemetery. "It ended up taking a lot longer than we thought it would," said Buxton, who earned his Eagle Scout award thanks to the project. "But it ended up being better in the end." 

Cornish Cemetery is located Intersection of UT 61 & UT 23 go west approx. 1 1/2 miles,
turn south approx. 1/4 mile, cemetery is on west
Cornish Cemetery photos were submitted by Kathleen Burnett.

Cornish City Cemetery sign

Cornish Cemetery, general view showing the lay of the land.