The second-oldest marked burial ground in the city (the oldest is Trinity Churchyard), this little plot holds the remains of a number of early settlers, some pre-Revolutionary. Many of the stones are completely illegible or missing; the oldest legible stone is Nancy Redding’s from 1816.
Not a very artistic stump, but a huge one, so that counts for something. The living tree that has grown up beside it shows us that nature still has a thing or two to teach us about constructing an appealing tree trunk.
A curiously eclectic design: rustic stone in a classical shape with medieval columns. The combination is not displeasing, but it does have the look of having been assembled from a children’s toy building set.
Alice O’Mara (1854-1895) keeps a stern eye on everything that goes on in this section of the cemetery. Mostly she scolds groundhogs.
A particularly tasteful statue of the Blessed Virgin was, when Father Pitt visited, pressed into service holding a twig wreath and a bouquet of artificial daisies. This unusual monument presides over a family plot of matching headstones. The earliest burial is “Our Geneva” (1883-1903), but from the style old Pa Pitt would guess that the monument is more likely to date from the death of her mother (1921) or father (1927).
