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The oldest cemetery in New London county, and -one- of the oldest in New England. The first burial was in 1652.
The oldest extant stone appears to be from a decade later.
The number of actual graves is unknown, but according to legend almost the entire generation of that area's earliest settlers are buried here.
though the yard is on a prominent hillside on a busy street, it has long had a semi-abandoned air.
It feels almost like investigating ancient grand ruins. Which, in a sense, they are. For every ornate stone in great shape
(like this one: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/17987996/ ) there are 2 in poor condition. Even some of the modern replicas replacing some of the older stones are crumbling themselves.
In the southeast portion of the yard, a giant weeping European beech tree overhangs about 20 of the stones.
The oldest extant stone appears to be from a decade later.
The number of actual graves is unknown, but according to legend almost the entire generation of that area's earliest settlers are buried here.
though the yard is on a prominent hillside on a busy street, it has long had a semi-abandoned air.
It feels almost like investigating ancient grand ruins. Which, in a sense, they are. For every ornate stone in great shape
(like this one: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/17987996/ ) there are 2 in poor condition. Even some of the modern replicas replacing some of the older stones are crumbling themselves.
In the southeast portion of the yard, a giant weeping European beech tree overhangs about 20 of the stones.
Category Photography / Miscellaneous
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1280 x 960px
File Size 582.4 kB
The accounts you've posted of what information remains on these stones, as well as the pictures of the stones themselves, are fascinating. Although I'm seeing pictures and reading your descriptions and not what you've seen being there, I can understand how you feel in describing it more like ancient ruins than what we would now call a churchyard. I have trouble imagining myself being alive a hundred years ago, much less what, in some of the cases of the burial sites you've helped to preserve in your pictures and tellings, are in some cases approaching four hundred years of age (I know 2050 is still a little ways away, but it's a lot further from 1650 to 2017!)
It seems like the names and stones of the dead that we yet can see are a strange reminder of what was so long ago, preserved well in some cases, others worn lumps of stone over graves that by now, possibly even the remainder of the bodies buried (as in the bones) are returned to the soil. Absolutely fascinating. Even if it could be assumed in those days that a permanent method of photography (or what it might've been called, had it existed that long ago) that was parallel to our own technology, I wonder what someone, whom in their time buried a loved one, or considered their own internment there (you said that it was suggested by local legend that reputedly, the vast majority of everyone in the earliest generation the area's residents might in fact be buried somewhere on those grounds), would think of what we see now, all those centuries later, and enough of the stones and undisturbed ground remain that they, and we, still recognize what is before us?
It's a pleasure to share in your work and discoveries and explorations, without feeling like this interest on my part is morbid or morose. I feel like I'm seeing a peculiarly clear view of a considerably vintage bit of history with my own eyes. Thank you for sharing it with me!
-2Paw.
It seems like the names and stones of the dead that we yet can see are a strange reminder of what was so long ago, preserved well in some cases, others worn lumps of stone over graves that by now, possibly even the remainder of the bodies buried (as in the bones) are returned to the soil. Absolutely fascinating. Even if it could be assumed in those days that a permanent method of photography (or what it might've been called, had it existed that long ago) that was parallel to our own technology, I wonder what someone, whom in their time buried a loved one, or considered their own internment there (you said that it was suggested by local legend that reputedly, the vast majority of everyone in the earliest generation the area's residents might in fact be buried somewhere on those grounds), would think of what we see now, all those centuries later, and enough of the stones and undisturbed ground remain that they, and we, still recognize what is before us?
It's a pleasure to share in your work and discoveries and explorations, without feeling like this interest on my part is morbid or morose. I feel like I'm seeing a peculiarly clear view of a considerably vintage bit of history with my own eyes. Thank you for sharing it with me!
-2Paw.
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