WEST MARLBOROUGH: Cemetery update

Here's an update on the story I wrote in April about the old Mount Olive AME Church cemetery on Upland Road, where at least six African-American Civil War soldiers are buried. A neighbor who has been quietly maintaining the small site has discovered that there are two massive dead oak trees on the property that need to be taken down. If left to fall on their own, one will hit a house and the other will go across the road, and some of the graves could be disturbed. He said the project is "beyond volunteers" and has gotten a quote from local tree surgeon Dean Madsen of $3,000 to take down both trees. He said that was more than fair, considering that a crane will need to be brought in. He asked me to write about the situation in hopes that readers might offer contributions.
A few days after my story ran, I received an email from another local man who is part of a Civil War Roundtable and, coincidentally, had been doing research on that very cemetery. I put the men in touch with each other, and both attended the May West Marlborough Township meeting to ask the supervisors if they'd be interested in financing the project.
Supervisors chairman Bill Wylie said the township could not spend taxpayers' money on a private site, but he would ask the township solicitor whether the township could take over the abandoned property (the last burial there was in 1944). Another possibility mentioned was that perhaps local African-American churches might want to get involved in the preservation effort.

Civil War veteran John Dorsey and his wife are buried at the Mount Olive cemetery.