One of the most prominent, projects of this initiative was the replacement in 1986 of the Founders Monument, which had deteriorated severely, with a new obelisk of solid pink granite from Stony Creek, Connecticut, to commemorate Hartford’s 350th anniversary.
(East side of the Founder’s Monument shown here)
In 1987 the Ancient Burying Ground Association, Inc., a private, non-profit group, was created in order to move forward with the on-going conservation, preservation, and maintenance program that has cost more than $1 million to date. The Ancient Burying Ground has been dramatically improved as a site, while cutting-edge knowledge and techniques have been used to clean, preserve, or replicate more than 100 gravestones.
Conservation is the activity of cleaning gravestones of biological growth, straightening leaning gravestones, resetting gravestones with a better supporting mixture of pea stone and sand to help with drainage, and other stewardship activities to preserve this historical site for the decades and centuries ahead.