Somers Cemetery, with graves from 1800s, gets fresh paint, but needs more help
SOMERS POINT — Members of the local Kiwanis Club had a brush with the past, so to speak, at a little-known piece of city history when they scraped and painted the fence around Somers Cemetery.
The cemetery, which contains the graves of many family members from the 1800s, is just south of where Holly Hills Drive meets Somers Point-Mays Landing Road. Getting there requires passing into the Great Bay Villas condominiums, where there is a set of wood steps leading down to the fenced graveyard.
On May 17, six Kiwanians from the Northfield-Linwood Kiwanis Club, along with 14 to 15 members of the Egg Harbor Township High School Key Club, a student from Jordan Road School and another from St. Joseph Regional School, wire-brushed the entire fence and put a coat of primer on about a third of the 270-foot perimeter.
City Councilwoman Janice Johnston mentioned the work during a City Council meeting May 22.
“They’re cleaning up the cemetery, they’re painting the fence. It just looks great and I want to commend them for stepping up,” Johnston said. “I don’t know what drew their attention to it, but it’s always been an issue as to who is supposed to maintain that. I think it’s great that they are stepping up and cleaning it up.”
Linwood resident John Capasso, president of the Northfield-Linwood Kiwanis Club, said rain May 31 forced them to rescheduled for June 3-4.
“Frankly, this job was bigger than I expected. Our crew wire brushed nearly the entire perimeter — 270 feet. What took up time? Lots and lots of spindles and railings. A lot of surface area to cover,” Capasso said.
After switching from brushes to rollers June 3, when Capasso was joined only by Kiwanian Bob Rothhouse of EHT, the project moved a little faster. The next day, when they were joined by about a dozen sixth-graders from St. Joe’s, and it was nearly completed.
Capasso said he thinks four more hours would get the job done and had expected to finish June 11-12.
He wanted to be sure to give a shout out to Sherwin Williams of Somers Point, which he said provided the paint and supplies at a steep discount, and to Great Bay Villas resident Sue, who made her bathroom facilities available and her outside hose for cleaning the equipment.
Sherwin Williams manager Samantha Shield said it was her pleasure.
“I just wanted to help the community, too,” she said.
It was the second time Capasso has participated in painting the fence. As a special education teacher at Mainland Regional High School, he led a team from the School to Work program in painting it in 2011. The program teaches job readiness and prepares students for work, higher education, military service and independent living.
Capasso said the shop teacher at the time, Bill Adams, helped students put in wooden steps and later, an “industrious Eagle Scout” added railings.
He said Walt Gregory, secretary of the Somers Point Historical Society and a member of the Patriots for Somers Mansion, mentioned the poor state of the cemetery to a Kiwanian and they decided to take on the project.
“We try to do hand-on things as much as possible,” Capasso said, noting they have done work at Our Lady of Sorrows Church, Seaview Baptist Church and the Linwood Historical Museum.
Members volunteer at charitable runs, National Night Out and work with the HERO Campaign for Designated Drivers.
The motto of Kiwanis, founded in 1915 in Indianapolis, Ind., is “changing the world one community and one child at a time.”
The club sponsors a Key Club at Mainland Regional and Ocean City high schools and works with the EHT club, as well as a Builders Club at Northfield Community School.
Other Kiwanis affiliates include Circle K for college-age students and Aktion Club for adults with disabilities.
Somers Cemetery
needs more help
The cemetery has seen better days. Many of the headstones are so weathered that they’re illegible, the metal fence surrounding it has been bent and broken in places and the wooden steps descending to it are rotten and falling apart.
Capasso said the fence already was damaged the last time he painted it.
Councilman Kirk Gerety said many of the original Somers family members are buried there, while some, including city founder Col. Richard Somers, were laid to rest on the grounds of the former school on New York Avenue.
The most famous of Somers Point’s sons, Master Commandant Richard Somers, is of course still buried in Tripoli.
Somers, who was appointed a midshipman in the U.S. Navy in 1797, was killed while leading a fireship attack against Tripolitan-backed pirates during the Barbary Wars in 1804. He is recognized as among the first heroes of the fledgling U.S. Navy.
The ship Somers commanded, the Intrepid, was a floating bomb filled with 100 barrels of gunpowder and 150 fixed shells. Somers led 12 volunteers to sail the ship into Tripoli Harbor in an attempt to destroy the pirate fleet. However, the ship exploded prematurely, killing all aboard.
The bodies of all 13 crewmen washed ashore the next day and were buried in an unmarked communal grave. The Libyan government unearthed the remains in 1949 and moved them to the Old Protestant Cemetery in Tripoli.
Gerety, president of the Somers Point Historical Society, said the group used to take care of the property because “basically no one owns it.”
“There is no deed for the property. Someone had done a title search and couldn’t find any ownership,” Gerety said.
Gerety said an attorney recommended the group not seek ownership of the property because that would open it to liability.
He said Great Bay Country Club offered to have its landscapers take care of it, but that was about 10 years ago.
The lifelong city resident worked at the country club in the 1970s and recalls maintaining the property and helping tear down the original structure on the site, which was an out building on the Somers estate that was turned into the first clubhouse.
“Great Bay changed ownership so many times over the years that it got lost in the shuffle,” he said.
While many may not be aware of the cemetery’s existence and location, Gerety said it is a stop on the walking tours hosted by the historical society.
Donna Mohr, president of the Patriots for Somers Mansion and head of the Somers Point Historic Commission, which oversees the historic district, said groups over the years have cleaned the tombstones and been involved with the upkeep for many years but never anything on a regular basis.
– By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
Photos courtesy of Kiwanis Club.
