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PLYMOUTH — Tom Jesso Sr. said the lower part of the Shawnee Cemetery is very steep, making it nearly impossible to get a lawn mower down the hill to cut the grass.
With about 150 years’ worth of graves on that hill, Jesso said he had to find a way to keep the grass trimmed to preserve the final resting place for all those interred there.
So Jesso and his wife searched for an answer and they found it on the Internet — goats.
Ruth Jesso was doing an online search for goats and found Brian Vick, owner of Goats for Rent in Wapwallopen. The Jessos called Vick and the response they got was, as Tom said, “a miracle.”
Vick donated 16 goats for a week to clear the overgrowth on the steep one-and-a-half acre area. Jesso said the goats were just what the cemetery needed.
“We’ve had so much rain lately,” Jesso said. “And our volunteers have fallen off, so we needed to find a way to get that area cleared. I guess you can say it was goats to the rescue.”
Jesso and his wife have been voluntarily caring for the Shawnee Cemetery for 10 years. Henry Sobolewski, 81, comes around a couple of days a week to help out, Jesso said. The three volunteers know how important it is to maintain the final resting place for all those buried in the historic cemetery, which dates to the early 1800s.
“These monuments here are the resting place of our heroes — Plymouth’s pioneers and veterans,” Jesso said.
‘Munching away’
Jesso said the goats have been doing a terrific job. He said they seem to be enjoying their time as temporary cemetery workers.
“They really are doing pretty good, munching away all day,” Jesso said. “They are something else. I’ve had a smile on my face since yesterday that won’t go away.”
Jesso said he and Ruth had been thinking about purchasing some goats for the cemetery. He said Vick was eager to help and donated the goats’ services.
Jesso said he has family buried in the Shawnee Cemetery.
“I’ve been taking care of my family’s plots since I was 12 years old,” he said. “And then I started taking care of the lots next to my family. After several years, I noticed that many graves were being lost to Mother Nature. There was nobody taking care of the cemetery so we decided to give it a shot.”
Jesso said he, Ruth and Henry are volunteers and all money raised goes back into maintaining and improving the cemetery.
“We love what we’re doing,” Jesso said. “And we meet a lot of interesting people. They tell us stories of their family members and the history.”
The cemetery officially dates to 1873, when the first burial permit was issued for a boy named William, child of Joseph Shock.
But you’ll find graves of people who died in the 1700s as well.
Some of those older graves were removed from other cemeteries that were becoming crowded and transferred to Shawnee, Jesso said. He recalled the gravestone of Olive Ransom, who died in 1793 at age 33.
Olive’s husband, George Ransom, had served in Gen. George Washington’s army as a young man and, Jesso noted, later achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel.
“There’s so much history here,” he said.
