Gravestones at Cummings Plot have been put in place and will be re-dedicated at a Saturday ceremony. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

GREENWOOD — At Cummings Plot across from Greenwood Town Beach, headstones removed by loggers in the 1960s, have been replaced, at last.

Plans to restore the plot began in the spring by Sue Nusbaum of Phippsburg, who has direct descendants buried in the cemetery. Greenwood residents, town officials, members of the American Legion Jackson-Silver Post 68, and other the Cummings descendants all answered the call to help.

The cemetery will be rededicated at 11 a.m. Saturday. Greenwood Selectperson Amy Chapman and others will deliver remarks. An invocation will start the program and it will conclude with a three-gun salute.

Lunch will follow at the Jackson-Silver Post 68 on Gore Road in Greenwood. Persons who wish to attend the lunch should notify Sue Nusbaum at:  suesm62845@aol.com with their  number of attendees.  All are invited, said Nusbaum and donations for the lunch will be accepted.

On June 17, residents and Cummings descendants’ helped clean up the overgrown cemetery. The five bodies were detected by radar on July 7 ,and replacement headstones were ordered and delivered. On Sept. 10 the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War erected the headstones purchased by the Veterans Administration and members of the Cummings family.

The Cummings plot was established by the family of Joseph Cummings on their family farm, when the child of Joseph Cummings Jr. died in 1842 at age 19 months. The other graves are of Revolutionary War veteran Joseph Cummings, War of 1812, Veteran Joseph Cummings Jr, and his wife Ruth Thayer Cummings their son, Wellington, and Civil War veteran Joseph Cummings.

A few years ago, while researching her family history, Nusbaum discovered that she has direct descendants in the Cummings Plot. She said, “I think it’s horrible that they ran over the gravestones and destroyed the cemetery .. [it] should be restored. It has American patriots in it from multiple wars. Veterans who should be honored, as far back as the Civil War, The War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War.”
She and many others have made good on their promise to ‘right the wrong’ at Cummings Plot.

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