Grave Cleaning & Headstone Restoration in Lewiston

Restoring History in the Mill Town

Lewiston was built on industry. For a century, the mills along the Androscoggin burned coal and oil. That smoke didn't just disappear. It settled on the cemeteries like Riverside and St. Peter's.

We deal with markers coated in hard black carbon crusts. It looks like dirt, but it’s harder than the stone itself. Combine that with the river fog and the deep Maine freeze, and you have stones that are dirty and tipping over. Families searching for headstone cleaning services near me call us to strip off the industrial grime and reset monuments that the frost has pushed out of the ground.

Industrial Carbon Crust

The old mills left a legacy of soot. On white marble stones, this soot reacts with moisture to form a black gypsum crust.

This stuff bonds to the stone. A pressure washer won't touch it; you’ll just blow the face of the marble off trying. We use a sulfur-digesting chemical poultice. It dissolves the black shell into a paste. We rinse it away, and the original white stone comes back to light without damage.

River Valley Moss

Fog sits heavy in the Androscoggin valley. Mornings here are wet. That dampness covers the granite in thick moss.

That moss holds water against the stone surface. When winter hits, the water freezes and pops the granite polish off. We don't scrape moss; that scratches the stone. We kill it with a biocide. The roots die. The moss falls off. The stone dries out.

Inland Frost Heave

We aren't on the coast. The winters here are colder, and the frost goes deeper—sometimes five feet down.

The ground swells when it freezes. It lifts the headstones and throws them sideways. We see heavy monuments tipping dangerously. To fix this, we have to dig past the frost line. We install a deep pad of crushed stone. This drains the water away. No water means no ice to heave the marker.

"Sugaring" of Marble

Acid rain from the industrial days did a number on the old soft marble. The chemical bond holding the stone together is gone.

The surface turns to sugar. Rub your hand on it, and it turns to dust. We treat these fragile stones with a consolidant. This liquid soaks deep into the rotting pores and hardens. It locks the grains back together so the inscription doesn't fade away completely.

Iron Jacking on Large Monuments

St. Peter’s Cemetery has massive family monuments. The old builders used iron pins to stack the granite blocks.

Iron rusts and expands. That pressure blows the corners off the granite. We have to dismantle the monument to get to the core. We core out the rusted iron and install stainless steel pins. Stainless steel doesn't rust, so the stone stays solid.

Lichen on Rough Granite

The rough-cut "rock pitch" borders on headstones catch dust and spores. Lichen grows deep into these crevices.

It forms hard grey circles that look like cement spots. Wire brushes ruin the stone texture. We use a biological cleaner that penetrates the growth. It kills the lichen at the root. Rain washes the dead matter out of the rough spots, leaving the stone clean.

Sunken Flat Markers

The soil in Lewiston is a mix of clay and loam. It settles over time. Flat markers slowly disappear under the turf.

Grass grows over the edges until the stone is gone. We cut the sod back and lift the marker. We pack gravel underneath to bring it flush with the ground again. This keeps the mower from hitting it and keeps the name visible.

Service Costs in Lewiston

Removing a century of mill soot is slow, chemical work. Resetting a massive monument requires a crane and a crew. We look at the site to see what we are up against before quoting a price.