Bringing history back from the grave
By CHRIS CONROY
chrsconroy@riverreporter.com
Joe Quinlan and His Wife Lorraine can both trace their
roots back through Sullivan County History.
Nature quickly reclaims her space.
In less than two decades, more than 150 years of human intervention can become nearly invisible.
Such was the case of the Pintler cemetery in the Town of Bethel, until one resident, himself intimately connected to the area's history, began the arduous task of reclaiming the historic landmark.
"It's history and it should be preserved," said Joseph Quinlan. "It should definitely be preserved and it was the intent of the last survivors to have it preserved."
Quinlan, after watching for years as the cemetery was neglected, recently took it upon himself to uphold the final wishes of Cynthia Pintler who, when she died in the 1930's, declared in her will that the family cemetery should be maintained in perpetuity.
When he first started work at the isolated site, the once finely manicured landscaping was completely overgrown. Weeds, brambles and blueberry bushes had intertwined with the rusting wrought iron fence; fallen tree limbs and wild growth had choked the decorative flowering snowballs almost to oblivion. 11:1 a word, it was a mess.
"I spent an entire day out there with a
sledge hammer just straightening pegs," Quinlan said. "The gates were torn
down."
The Pintlers were Bethel's first family, building their first log cabin on the property in 1798 and then, in 1800, building the first house in what is today Sullivan County's fastest growing town. Ground for the cemetery was broken at the same time as the original cabin.
Back then, all the land was thickly forested, running wild with animals and Indians. Adam and George Pintler, brothers from Sussex County, New Jersey, and their families cleared the land by hand.
"I don't know how they did it," said Quinlan who cleared his own land by hand more than 30 years ago when he moved to Bethel. "It's hard work." Quinlan owns 60 acres of what was once the Pintler farm. Only a small portion of that is clear. "It was years before anyone even knew we were here." When nearby residents did finally meet him, Quinlan says they knew him as "the guy who builds the fires," referring to the many winters he spent burning out stumps and brush as he cleared his homestead.
One of those nearby residents he came to know well was Colonel Burton Lemon, at one time the caretaker of the Pintler Cemetery.
"[Colonel Lemon] could remember as a little kid watching the Minisink Indians coming to the springs. ..and over to Amber Lake," Quinlan said. "He told me how the Indians marked their trails."
Quinlan has fond memories of walks in the
woods with Lemon where the older man pointed out trees that had been marked with otherwise
unknown signs. In later years, as a scoutmaster, Quinlan would pass some of this
information on to the boys in his troop, keeping alive the fading history for one more
generation.
Keeping history alive is an important part of Quinlan's life. It all goes back to his own genealogy. Much of the historic information of the early history of the Pintlers, as well as many other prominent families of Sullivan County, can be found in "The History of Sullivan County," published in 1873 (reprinted in 1963 and re-edited and adapted in 1993) by James E. Quinlan, one of Quinlan's ancestors.
"History is as someone writes it. ..that's the bad thing," Quinlan said, discussing the more recent, heavily edited version of the history book. The reminiscences and ruminations passed on along family lines can change with time, having parts added or modified depending on the memory of the storyteller. The more solid aspects of history, artifacts and buildings are less mutable, but equally vulnerable to the passage of time.
"I grew up in New Jersey surrounded by three cemeteries," Quinlan said. "It's true. ..people like to disregard (cemeteries], run 'em over and all of a sudden build a house on them." Quinlan remembers seeing first hand the destruction that can be wrought by people. In August of 1969 during the Woodstock festival he watched in horror as bunches of people removed headstones and pieces of stone walls from another local cemetery to build fireplaces. "It was sacrilegious," he said.
"I believe man's history is the most important thing," Quinlan said. "If you don't know history, you don't know where you're at or how you got there."
Even with all of his interest in history, Quinlan said he has a comparatively poor record of his own history. He knows that James Eldridge Quinlan was a cousin of his great-grandfather, but the exact lineage remains a mystery. "Civil War history is owned by private collectors. .. that's why you can't get that history... I can't go any further to connect the dots."
It is because of holes in the publicly available historic tapestry that Quinlan is determined to keep any history he gets his hands on in the public eye. Recently, he decided not to give an antique fishing rod to a museum after finding out that they planned to lock it away in a storage area. "I don't believe in time capsules," he said. "If I'm going to donate something, I want it on display so my children and grandchildren can see it."
Quinlan's wife,
Lorraine, can relate well to her husband's interest in history. Her family, the
Hessingers, are mentioned often in the history of the area. Looking back on the lack of
current knowledge of history among many people, she has one major observation.
"People never talked about it. ..it was like they were never going to die [so they
didn't have to pass it on]."
There are limits to the access people should be allowed to historic places, Quinlan points out. Unsupervised access to the Pintler Cemetery over the years has led to a lot of destruction that he has personally repaired. Disrespectful hunters, treasure hunters and outright vandals have, in the past, torn up the land around the cemetery with their vehicles, nearly destroyed the main gate to the cemetery, toppled tombstones and dumped garbage in and around the old foundation of the original Pintler house.
"Nobody belongs back there," Quinlan said. "There's no open land back there."
Still, Quinlan continues his preservation work, spending his own time and money to preserve at least one piece of history. It's been hard he said, restoring the cemetery to the condition it should be in, but it hasn't been work. "It's more like recreational toil," he said, laughing.
Courtesy of Chris Conroy and the "River Reporter"
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