NEWS

Eagle Scout candidate IDs Coats graves

Gale Rose
Coats Cemetery Sextant Rick Shriver shakes hands with Life Scout Ty Montgomery as he accepts Montgomery's book containing the name and location of every grave in the Coats Cemetery. The cemetery had no records of where people were buried so Montgomery created a map with the name and location of every grave in the cemetery for his Eagle Scout project. The map and name booklet are in the gazebo at the cemetery.

Visitors to the Coats Cemetery over the Memorial Day weekend will have some assistance they have not had before to find a particular grave.

Life Scout Ty Montgomery has put together a grave map of the cemetery as part of the requirement for his Eagle Scout project.

Montgomery discovered that no map existed that showed exactly who was buried in what plot. A map showing who owns the plots exists but it doesn’t show who is buried there. A couple of fires had destroyed cemetery records but sextant Rick Shriver said there was a plat map of the cemetery.

The Cemetery has been platted three times as it expanded over the years and the numbering system was different for each addition so a new numbering system would be needed.

The Eagle Scout level requires the scout to do an improvement project in the community and creating a grave map would fulfill that requirement.

So Montgomery decided to walk the entire cemetery, look at every grave and record where every person is buried and match it up with the plot map to provide a way for visitors to find the grave of their loved one, Montgomery said.

He was looking for a project to complete his Eagle Scout level and this would fill the bill.

Part of the requirement for an Eagle Scout project is the candidate has to lead a group of people through the activity. So Montgomery enlisted the help of his fellow boy scouts and family members to get the job done.

The process took about a year. One of the biggest challenges other than looking at every grave was finding weekend days with good weather.

The scouts would gather, usually on a Saturday, and methodically take notes on the names of every gravestone in the cemetery. Some of the stones are very old, dating to the early 1900a, and the name and date were difficult to read. So the scouts would take rubbings of the stones. They put paper over the stone then they rubbed crayons across the paper to bring out the writing on the paper, Montgomery said.

Montgomery developed a numbering system and matched it up with the name on each grave. The information contains just names and locations. No dates are given on the map.

The next step was to develop a display area for the map. Montgomery’s dad helped build a stand for the map and the book with the names and locations.

The pages in the book are sealed against the weather. The map is also in a sealed compartment and both are on display in the gazebo at the Coats Cemetery.

While he was working on the map, he also made a separate list of veterans from the Civil War to the Vietnam War.

During their research, they learned that some graves do not have a marker and the identity of that person remains unknown, said Montgomery’s mom, Lori Montgomery.

The Grant Township Board takes care of the cemetery and they are grateful to have the information.

The next step on Montgomery’s way to Eagle Scout is for him to submit his project to the Eagle Board of Review for evaluation, said Ted Loomis, merit badge counselor for Troop 7201, the Methodist Church Troop.

When approved, Montgomery will appear before the Eagle Court of Honor in a ceremony that will make the title official. He will receive an Eagle cord of honor, an Eagle rank patch, an Eagle neckerchief and an Eagle Scout pen plus pens for those that helped him.