NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – Roger Eurbin has become a constant presence in bringing a new life force to the once disheveled and unkempt grounds of Hill Side Cemetery.
For the past few years, Eurbin and a restoration group have raised fallen stones that firmly sunk into the earth, repaired broken markers and set straight the crooked "teeth" on "cardiac hill." All to ensure that the stones properly mark the final resting places of soldiers and former residents long passed since the cemetery's establishment in the 1700s.
This passion and call to duty came from a simple walk. Led by his grandson, Eurbin stumbled upon something that needed attention.
"About three years ago, maybe even four, I took a walk up there with my grandson, mainly because I love history and … I liked to look at the veterans' graves and the epitaphs," Eurbin said, speaking earlier this summer. "When we got up there I started looking around, and I couldn't believe the damage. I couldn't believe what the stones looked like. It was bad. It is still pretty bad."
Erubin's first charge was just organizing the historical sprawling cemetery cleft by Route 2.
He dug out whatever information there was in the city records that would help him survey the cemetery.
"I walked the entire cemetery and just tried to get an idea of how much work had to be done. I went to get a map of the cemetery, subdivided it into work sections and what we could accomplish," he said.
He said he digitized all the records so he could use them to guide his work.
Although the city could not help financially, Mayor Richard Alcombright helped him reach out to local businesses for support. He said they were able to raise $4,000 in startup money to buy tools and get started. He said he also tapped into the Tinker Fund, set up to help maintain Hill Side by the Tinker family.
Eurbin's admiration for cemeteries comes from the time he spent in the Navy.
An Adams native, Eurbin graduated from the former North Adams State College in 1964. From there he entered the aviation officer's candidate program and went through flight school. He joined the Navy and was commissioned on two aircraft carriers where he did two tours of Vietnam.
After serving on an amphibious ship out of California, Eurbin retired from the Navy. He said his experience allowed him to see a lot of the world – and a lot of cemeteries.
"One of the things I used to do was go to veteran cemeteries," Eurbin said. "I have been to the memorial at Pearl Harbor and the Punchbowl and I have seen cemeteries in Normandy and Italy. It's amazing and it gives you chills."
After leaving the Navy, Eurbin took a job on the West Coast. That company moved him to Texas, then to New York City and then to Pennsylvania. He said he was with the company for 32 years before he retired.
Eurbin came back to North Adams five years ago.
After seeing so many honorably maintained cemeteries in his travels throughout the world and country, he thought Hill Side, which is marked as a national historic site, could be restored.
"It really was after what I had seen in other communities, and I knew that Hill Side was old but I didn't know how old and how significant it was," he said. "A lot of the movers and shakers of North Adams are buried there. It is our history. Tinker, Blackinton and many others. They were important people in the day and to let things go it is sad."
He brought together a group who shared this same passion to rebuild Hill Side
"It was overwhelming at first, and I knew it would take a long time. At that time, it was just me so little by little we put together a small group," Eurbin said. "In the beginning, there was three of us and since then we have added more people. The guys that are helping me now are incredibly passionate."
He said the group has continued to grow and meets every Wednesday and every other Saturday during the summer to reset stones and clean up.
Through the years, starting at the corner of Brown Street and West Main Street, the group has moved through the cemetery picking up every stone they come across. He said they restored many veteran flags and rehabilitated the Soldiers Circle.
The group ended the year with a tally of more than 650 stones reset on the north side of the cemetery, from Brown Street past the Tinker Mauseleum to the far north corner. All of cardiac hill, a steep somewhat perilous incline to the railroad tracks, has been completed. There's still the northwest section and the entire south side of the road to do.
"Some of them were actually buried, some were really heavy and some were falling down or ready to fall down," Eurbin said. "We reset a lot of those so if you go by now you can see it looks pretty good."
He also brought on local historian Paul W. Marino, who helped identify many of the mystery plots that Eurbin said they discover almost every time they are up there.
"Once we deal with the stone we are working on, we probe around it and we have found many that were buried, and not recently. They have been there quite a while," he said.
He said on his first visit with his grandson, his grandson took off into the woods where he found more stones. The small woodland was encroaching on the cemetery.
"He was just meandering around and he came out and told me to come look at what he found and there were graves back there that no one even knew about," he said. "They aren't even on city records, which lead me to believe that the was the pauper cemetery."
According to Marino, Hill Side is the oldest municipal cemetery in the city.
Braytonville farmers Richard and Lillie Knight's daughter died in 1798. She was buried at the top of the hill off Brown Street, in what would become the Knight lot.
Eurbin noted that there is a soldier buried in Hill Side from every war the United States fought in, and there are plenty of stories buried in Hill Side as well as oddities.
There is the grave of John E. Atwood, a corporal in the Civil War. He was part of the 10th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry from what would become North Adams.
Eurbin said Atwood was wounded in the battle of Cold Harbor and was sent to Gettysburg to recuperate before the battle of Gettysburg.
"The 10th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry ended up in Gettysburg and fought in the battle. After the battle when Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address, they had chosen men from each of the states represented in that battle and one of them, of course, was Atwood," Eurbin said. "He was the color bearer for them during the Gettysburg Address."
Eurbin said Atwood met President Lincoln and upon returning home became a police officer.
There is even one British soldier buried in the Soldiers Circle. His name was Nims and a British flag marks his grave. He died in the battle of Fort Massachusetts.
He said there are also stones with Chinese names on them from Chinese strikebreakers who came to North Adams and decided to stay after a shoe factory strike cooled down.
He concluded that there are just odd stones, like a curved memorial stone. He said he has no idea why it is like that.
Eurbin said in the future they plan to set up a self-guided tour led by a digital map people can download on their phones. He said this is still in the works.
Setting these stones back up is grueling work and some of these goliaths are upwards of five tons.
"It's intensive. We have to dig around it, and if they are down or fallen we have to probe down to see if there is a base," he said. "If they don't have a base we make one ... and we concrete it all in so they won't fall again, at least not in our lifetime. It's labor intensive and it is all done by hand."
He said when they first started they did six to eight stones a day, now they can clear 12.
Recently the city purchased a heavy-duty tripod to help them lift the stones, allowing them to move even faster.
Erubin said the group is always looking for donations toward its efforts. He added that anyone who wants to help is more than welcome.
Cardiac hill prior to Eurbin's intervention.
"It has really been a labor of love to the guys that work on it, and if you saw how enthusiastic they are you would be amazed," Eurbin said. "But with a project like this, we could definitely use more people. They don't have to be strong to do things. Raking and cleaning stones is just as helpful."
Eurbin said he is amazed by the community support. He noted that Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and Williams College students have also helped out. He added that it makes him happy just knowing that the community appreciates what his group is doing.
He said with all the support he has received he knows that the cemetery will be taken care of for years to come.
"I would like to finish all of the stones in my lifetime but I am 75 years old and I am hoping we can get at least half of them done before I am under the grass," he said. "We are doing pretty good and I am very pleased with the progress we made and if I left tomorrow, the guys that I have there now will keep right on going."
