In one of the Facebook groups on genealogy that I belong to, someone
posted a link to an article by the New England Historical Society that was
titled “Six Historic Cemeteries in New England.” (*1) The authors picked out one
old cemetery in each of the six New England states to feature: Grove Street
Cemetery in New Haven, CT; Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor, ME; Myles Standish
Burying Ground in Duxbury, MA; North Cemetery in Portsmouth, NH; Newman
Cemetery in Rumford, RI; and Hope Cemetery in Barre, VT. Because my various
ancestral lines go back almost 400 years in New England, I’d like to look and
see what “connections” I have to these cemeteries. I’d also like to mention a
few other cemeteries in CT where many of my ancestors are buried.
I have relatively few ancestors in Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, or
Vermont. The historic cemeteries in each of those state are fairly large (25K,
1100, 2200, 7K respectively), since I am not aware of any ancestors there I did
not search through the memorials there. It’s possible that there are distant
cousins or other relatives, but I have limited time to do the research
involved. The historic cemeteries in CT and MA have 13K and 192 memorials
respectively. I’ll look at the Myles Standish Burying Ground first.
Myles Standish Burying Ground
This is the oldest maintained cemetery in the US (*2). The oldest grave
is dated 1687 and the most recent is dated 1789. Thus, while most of the
individuals who were part of the original Pilgrim colony in Plymouth died
before this cemetery was establish, many of their descendants or other
relatives may be found here. There is only relative of mine interred here:
·
John Rogers – Two of the original Mayflower
passengers were Thomas Rogers (1571-1621) and his son Joseph (1603-1678). My
wife and I are both descended from Joseph (*3). Neither Thomas nor Joseph are
buried here, but a brother of Joseph, John (1606-1691) is. He is my great*8
uncle.
Grove Street Cemetery
For the first 160 years of New Haven, people were buried on the New
Haven Green. But when the green got overcrowded during the yellow fever
epidemic at the end of the 1700s, the Grove Street Cemetery was established.
The first burial there took place in 1797. Since my mother’s family had been in
New Haven for over 100 years at that point, there are a number of relations in
this cemetery. Here are the primary family names in my ancestry and the number
of people with that last name interred here (note that women are listed under
both their maiden name and their married name, so there is some overlap). But
you can get a good idea of how many of my relatives are in this historical
cemetery.
·
Beecher – 117
·
Blakeslee – 14
·
Bradley – 296
·
Davenport – 3
·
Edwards – 28
·
Frost – 2
·
Hitchcock – 31
·
Hotchkiss – 351
·
Johnson – 68
·
Peck – 191
·
Perkins – 27
·
Pierpont – 12
·
Potter – 44
·
Russell – 21
·
Sperry – 39
·
Talmadge – 10
·
Trowbridge – 182
·
Tuttle – 123
It’s pretty obvious that with so many relatives in so many branches of
my family that doing an exhaustive look at each one to document the exact
relationship of each of them to me is much too large a task. Suffice it to say
that I have a lot of connections to the families of New Haven and most of them
from the late 1700s are buried here.
Center Church on the Green
Churchyard
This is the cemetery that preceded the Grove Street Cemetery above. My
great*7 grandfather, James Pierpont (1659-1714), was the pastor of this church
and the founder of Yale in 1701. He is one of the ones interred in this
cemetery, along with many other relatives from that time period.
The present church building was built in 1814 and was built over the
top of part of the burying ground. In 1821, almost all of the remaining outside
monuments were moved to the Grove Street Cemetery (many of them around the
inside wall in alphabetical order). Of the 622 graves remaining, 137 of the
gravestones remain in the basement crypt which is only open a few hours a week
for tours (*4, *5). I toured the crypt a few years ago when the Pierpont Family
Association met in New Haven and we had arranged for a special tour. Here are
some of the family names in my ancestry and, like above, the number of individuals
in that family interred here:
·
Alcott/Allcock – 8
·
Beecher – 7
·
Blakeslee – 4
·
Bradley – 29
·
Davenport – 4
·
Edwards – 2
·
Hitchcock – 7
·
Hotchkiss – 14
·
Johnson – 2
·
Peck – 12
·
Perkins – 17
·
Pierpont/Pierpoint – 14
·
Potter – 7
·
Russell – 4
·
Sperry – 11
·
Talmadge – 1
·
Todd – 30
·
Trowbridge – 35
·
Tuttle – 2
Again, a lot of my relatives in this one cemetery.
East Farms Cemetery
This is a small cemetery with only 162 graves that was located down the
driveway next to my grandparent’s house in Waterbury, CT. Since it only contains
graves from families who lived in the area, and that area had many of my
relatives living in it, a large number of the graves are of individuals related
to me. Family names are like those listed above for the cemeteries in New Haven
as that is where many of these families moved from – including families like
Beecher, Frost, Hitchcock, Johnson, and Pierpont, the Pierpont family alone numbering
41 graves.
Wolcott Historical Cemeteries
I’ve written in the past about three small historic cemeteries in my
hometown of Wolcott, CT. With my ties to so many people in Wolcott history, a
large percentage of the people in these old cemeteries are related to me.
Pike’s Hill Burying Ground (*6) – 7 graves from 1776-1781, all related
to me.
Northeast Burying Ground (*7) – 103 graves from 1796 (oldest ones
relocated from Pike’s Hill Burying Ground) to 1829, nearly all related to me.
South East Burying Ground (*8) – 63 graves from 1782-mid 1800s plus one
more recent, many related to me.
Notes
*4 - https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-crypt-at-center-church-on-the-green-new-haven-connecticut
Grandpa Joe's ancestors are buried in the High Cemetery in Concord Mass. Several Hartwells were on Concord Bridge that morning they ran the English off and the Hartwell Tavern is still there.
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