The details are minimal – name, age and date of birth – but beneath the ground are the remains of those men, women, children and babies who once called Paterson home.

But with the cemetery falling into ­disrepair, parishioners and residents of the historic village are calling on people to come forward for a clean-up of the site.

Earlier this year long-time Paterson ­residents Wayne and Val Patfield began a project to restore the graves of their ­ancestors Samuel Patfield, who died in 1910, and his wife Sarah Australia Patfield, who died in 1926.

“The cemetery is deteriorating badly and the community just isn’t looking after it,” Mrs Patfield said.

“And we need to do something now because once this is gone we can’t get it back.”

The graveyard was established and ­consecrated in 1839. 

According to the Paterson Historical Society’s document of the ­cemetery, James Moreland, 29, was one of the first people interred there when he was buried on November 1, 1839. 

John Chambers, a convict aged 26, was buried soon after on November 24.

It is believed the last person was buried at the cemetery in 2005.

The church’s first incumbent reverend, John Jennings-Smith, is also buried at the cemetery, along with many of the area’s ­pioneers.

“The church is responsible for the ­cemetery grounds and we’d like to see it fixed up,” parishioner Beverley Owen said.

But she said there must be people somewhere who are related to those buried in the cemetery.

In her book History of St Paul’s Church Paterson, historian Pauline Clements writes: “The graves tell a story all of their own – the sadness of so many families losing one, or more, of their youngest members, probably through the dreaded diseases of the past, whooping cough, diphtheria, drownings, accidents mothers dead from childbirth ... hard times indeed.’  

A cemetery working bee will be held on Saturday from 10.30am.