Recently, the West Virginia Sons of the Revolution has started cleaning the headstones of Revolutionary War Patriots.
One of our first cleanings was the headstone of Matthew Whitman, who served as a Private in Virginia under Captains Gray and Cunningham.
After researching how to safely clean headstones, we chose D2 Biological Solution for the cleaning of headstones. D2 Biological Solution has been extensively tested by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, National Park Service, U.S. Dept. of the Interior.
D2 has been used by an impressive number of cemeteries, organizations, sites, etc., a few of which are:
Department of Veterans Affairs
National Park Service
All Civil War National Cemeteries
Congressional Cemetery, DC
We started our cleaning of the headstone by spraying D2 Biological Solution on the headstone to thoroughly wet it and waited 15 minutes. During the 15 minutes, if the headstone started to dry, we sprayed more D2 Biological Solution to keep the headstone wet. After waiting the 15 minutes, we gently cleaned the headstone with a soft nylon bristle brush, spraying the headstone with a water mist if it started to dry. When we finished cleaning the headstone, we thoroughly rinsed the headstone with clean water.
Below are photos that were taken before and after cleaning the headstones with D2 Biological Solution.
headstone of Pvt. Matthew Whitman, Revolutionary War, before cleaning
headstone of Pvt. Matthew Whitman, Revolutionary War, after cleaning
As you can see, D2 Biological Solution did a good job of cleaning the accumulated biological growth that had grown on the headstone. An additional benefit of D2 is it continues to clean the headstone after the initial cleaning.