Members of the Michigan National Guard at Fort Custer, volunteers from the Michigan Youth Challenge Academy out of Battle Creek and volunteers from Charleston Township teamed up May 4 for a fence restoration and ground maintenance work day at Lawler Cemetery owned by Charleston Township.

There was a similar beautification day April 13 when approximately 38 volunteers, including the local Boy Scout Troop, started the maintenance process at the local cemetery. Robert Sexton, senior ordinance ground maintenance officer for the 177th Regional Training Institute, said in April eight dump truck loads of limbs, leaves, and debris were hauled away. Many tree limbs hanging on the fence or over the fence were trimmed.

Volunteers May 4 raked and cleared out leaves, sticks and debris and performed fence restoration along the perimeter of the cemetery and landscaping at the old cemetery.

Charleston Township Supervisor Jerry VanderRoest, who joined his wife Kathy assisting May 4, said 351 fence slats and 37 fence boards were replaced that were either destroyed from fallen tree limbs or from deterioration were replaced by the volunteers.

Lawler Cemetery, also known as Territorial Cemetery and Lone Pine Cemetery, is located on Fort Custer Training Center in Augusta. The cemetery has 366 headstones including 12 veterans who served in the Civil War and one American Revolution soldier, Zoeth Toby, who died in 1833. Lawler Cemetery is located along Territorial Road on the west side of the Cort Custer Training Center bordering the State of Michigan Fort Custer Recreation Area.

Sexton said a couple of years ago when he was at the Fort Custer Training Area on assignment doing training, he stopped by the cemetery and observed how dilapidated the fence was around the cemetery. When he started to read some of the dates on the headstones he became more intrigued with the local cemetery.

He contacted VanderRoest and set up a meeting when the Charleston Township Supervisor gave him a brief history of the Lawler Cemetery.

Sexton asked VanderRoest if it was possible to have a community project to rehabilitate the broken and worn down fencing and spruce up the cemetery.

VanderRoest told Sexton he’s been asked that question before but it’s challenging to gain access because the cemetery sits on the west side of the Fort Custer Training Center.

Sexton said because the 177th Regional Training Institute has access to the cemetery, he would be able to network with the Michigan Youth Challenge Academy and Michigan National Guard, allowing volunteers from those groups to help maintain and restore the cemetery “and keep it looking good.”

“Memorialize our veterans. That’s our key point here to try to do. But this is an enduring project,” said Sexton.

VanderRoest said he was very happy to learn Sexton wanted to put together a networking program with other groups and volunteers to perform some fence maintenance and spruce up the cemetery.

The Charleston Township Supervisor said the township had some money left over from the previous year’s budget and added some in this year’s budget to buy some of the fence replacement materials and Sexton got the Michigan Youth Challenge Academy and Michigan National Guard to provide volunteers.

Michigan Youth Challenge Academy, features students in a quasi-militaristic school setting that get the chance to receive accelerated high school diplomas.

Evan Soloman, the leader of the group of volunteers from the Michigan Youth Challenge Academy, said students are required to perform 40 hours of community service in order to graduate from the program. So a group from the MYCA volunteered their Saturday to help spruce up the old cemetery.

Soloman said it is important to remember and honor our veterans and when he learned there are 12 Civil War soldiers and one Revolutionary War soldier buried in the Lawler Cemetery it made him think how important those soldiers’ efforts were.

“It means a lot because if the Civil War or the Revolutionary War never happened, I would’ve never happened. All my family would’ve never happened. And a lot of my ancestors, they fought in wars. They were all  veterans. My grandfather was in the Vietnam War.  My great-grandfather, and his father were in a war. So it runs in my family to be around the graves of these people. It means a lot to them,” said the 16-year-old Michigan Youth Challenge Academy student from Traverse City.

Sexton said as more people become interested in donating towards the restoration of the cemetery, he’s putting together ideas for potential future enhancements.

“There’s things we want to do in the future, like put up a memorial. And we have a historian for Michigan involved from the Department of Military Veterans and Affairs. Has an actual resource and has on staff a historian. He’s been in contact and he’s going to be looking for the veterans, their names and working with the township to try to get some background stories. And kind of like display that like with the historical society,” said Sexton.

Donations can be made to Charleston Township Lawler Cemetery Preservation Project at https://www.charlestontownship.org.

History of Lawler Cemetery

Territorial Road was originally an old Indian Trail. As pioneers came to Michigan, the trail provided an east/west route. Owned by Frank W. Lawler, a local farmer at the time, the cemetery contains tombstones of some of the state’s early setters. Over time, the trail grew into a stage coach route between St. Louis and Detroit. Eventually, the area was farmed by early settlers. In 1917 several farms were taken by the government to build a military camp.

In 1917 Camp Custer was built for military training during World War I. The camp was named after the Civil War cavalry officer General George Armstrong Custer. In 1940 Camp Custer was designated Fort Custer and became a permanent military training base for World War II. In 1971, the government donated a portion (west end) of the land to the State of Michigan for use as a State Park and Recreation area. This is where the Lawler Cemetery is located.

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