DIXFIELD — A passion for riding all-terrain vehicles on back-country roads and doing community service projects helped Boy Scout Keith Masse find his Eagle Scout project.

Last weekend, the 15-year-old sophomore at Dirigo High School organized a community effort and cleaned up the small, remote Eddy Cemetery beside Science Hill Road in East Dixfield.

On Saturday, the East Dixfield resident with Troop 199 of Jay, with family and friends began restoring the larger Science Hill Cemetery about a mile closer to Route 2.

That’s where Henry King, a soldier from the War of 1812, and Civil War soldier Otis Conant Jr. are buried, along with residents from the late 1700s to mid-1800s. The Eddy Cemetery is older, containing a few graves of the Eddy family.

“I like to go four-wheeling a lot, and we came by this a few times, and also the (East Dixfield) postmaster, Joanne Karkos, also told us about this place and she wanted some of this done,” Masse said.

“So we came out here and looked, and then we realized there’s another one (Eddy) up the hill a little more, so we worked on that one, too.”

“You can actually see and tell where it is now,” volunteer and friend Sabrina Smith, 15, of East Dixfield, said of Eddy Cemetery.

Masse is also working with a monument maker to get a headstone made to replace one found there in several pieces.

Additional work includes raking leaves; removing saplings that have overgrown and hidden the two cemeteries; felling and removing dead trees; replacing rotting wooden fencing, gates and steps; scraping, sanding and painting iron rail fences around family plots; and straightening, righting, fixing and cleaning headstones and markers.

“Unfortunately, these two cemeteries are in the middle of nowhere and there’s no people to see them and they’re forgotten about sometimes,” said Keith’s father, John Masse.

“Keith and I would go four-wheeling here a lot and we couldn’t see the cemetery, and I thought someone should take care of it, so he decided to clean it out and fix it up,” the elder Masse said.

As of Saturday, Keith Masse and his volunteers had put 76 combined hours into the project, but donations have been lacking.

Masse said Towle’s Hardware and Twin Rivers Lumber in Dixfield have helped with materials, and he just heard back yesterday from his query of Puiia Hardware and Lumber in Mexico, but had yet to respond.

“We’re hoping to get enough donations to get the fence done,” John Masse said.

A deterioriating wooden fence lines only the uphill side of Science Hill Cemetery; the downhill side is lined by an old rock wall. Just down from the gate is a broken set of stairs that used to make it easier to climb up out of the rock-strewn roadway and into the cemetery.

Taking a break from cleaning a marble headstone with Smith that he and his father spent 90 minutes digging out and righting, Keith Masse said he enjoys Boy Scouts.

“Scouting is really fun and you learn responsibility and doing community service work,” he said. “I do community service work on my own a lot, too, so I get to help out a lot. But the hardest part here is digging out the bases of leaning headstones so you can straighten them.”

The Boy Scout, his dad, and friends plan to return to Science Hill Cemetery the weekend of Oct. 27 to continue their work and they would welcome volunteers.

Keith Masse said he is also seeking information about both cemeteries and people who are buried in them, because he believes headstones and grave markers are missing and should be replaced.

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