By Chuck D'Imperio | Contributing writer

Merrit Beardsley was just 8 years old when he died on Dec. 15, 1865. During his final days, Merrit told his father that he did not want to be buried underground because he was afraid of the dark. William and Sarah Beardsley honored their son's final wish and buried him in a tomb with a window on it!

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"It really is such a sad and poignant story," Kurt Riegel, 26, told me. He was instrumental in repairing, refurbishing and honoring Little Merrit's final resting place in 2016. "I knew of the boy's tomb but never was involved in it. Then I heard of a young man named Stefan Foster (21) who was working to raise money to fix up the badly tattered grave site. I met Stefan and we worked together in restoring it to its proper place."

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"When I first saw the tomb, it was a mess. It was dirty, defaced, pitted and a wreck. The glass window had been shattered. In fact, many years ago the grave had been vandalized and a local youth reached in and stole Merrit's skull and scattered his bones around the grounds. It was sad. The vandal actually had the boy's skull in his bedroom. Eventually he was discovered by the authorities, the skull was recovered and it and the boy's bones were re-interred in the tomb out of reach of other bad people. Norwich Glass Company provided the Plexiglas at the opening so it would never be broken again."

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Kurt Riegel

"Stefan was the real catalyst for the whole project," Riegel told me. "He wrote a wonderful book about the grave and the cemetery and sold several hundred copies to raise money for the stone work, plantings and a historical marker, which now tells the story of this little boy. It was a labor of love for both of us. The site is now beautiful with the stones cleaned and heritage plantings of 19th century flora around the tomb. I made a lifelong friend in Stefan, and the whole project was just so rewarding for all of us."

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Beardsley Cemetery is located on Hoben Road about 5 miles out of Oxford, N.Y., in Chenango County. People come from far and near to pay their respects at "Little Merrit's Tomb."

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The two raised $6,500 from book sales and donations and used the money to pay for the repairs.

Foster's dedication on the inside of the book reads: "Merrit, this one's for you. Bask in the essence of light shining in through your window and forever rest in peace."

The book is sold out but can be seen at the Oxford Public Library as well as the Guernsey Public Library in Norwich, N.Y. In its many pages there is much documentation of the efforts to keep this little boy's memory alive for generations to come.

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