— Photo by Harry Carlson
“While walking Brandle Road recently, I came upon several people cleaning up and restoring grave markers in the small cemetery nearest Main Street … How refreshing it was to see Americans right here in Altamont were voluntarily protecting rather than destroying our common heritage,” said Harry Carlson who took this picture. Thomas Capuano, founder of Historic Altamont Inc., said his group undertook the initial restoration work in October and then in the spring rebuilt and re-erected two wooden frames, inserting freshly printed explanations that Fred Hillenbrand had created in 1966 when he discovered the gravestone fragments on a nearby rubble pile and built the frames for those fragments. “The other stones were cleaned with the help of an expert: Historic Altamont Inc. called in Christopher White, an Albany grave conservator, who got us started on the work,” said Capuano.