Ye Antientist Burial Ground, New London

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Ye Antientist Burial Ground: "In this ancient cemetery, the graves are irregularly disposed, crowding upon each other without avenues or spaces between families, and most of the head stones are either rude in form and material, or quaint and grotesque in the workmanship and inscription." Harv|Prentis|Caulkins|1899

Ye Antientist Burial Ground [Known by several names over the years, including: Ancient Burial Ground, Ancientest Burial Ground, Antient Burying Ground, First Burial Ground, Ye Antientist Burial Ground, Ye Towne's Antientest Buriall Place, etc.] in New London, Connecticut is one of the earliest graveyards in New England, and the oldest colonial cemetery in New London County. The hillside lot of 1.5 acres (6,000 m²) adjoins the original site of the settlement's [Until the name change was authorized in 1658, New London was known as Pequot Plantation.] first meeting-house. From here the visitor has a broad view to the east of the Thames River [Pronounced to rhyme with "James", the river was earlier denoted by several different names including Frisius, Great, Great River of Pequot, Little Fresh, Mohegan, New London, Pequod, and Pequot.] , and on the far shore, the heights of Groton.

Reservation of the lot for its purpose had been recorded in the summer of 1645. The first decedent "of mature age" was duly interred there in 1652. But it is the ordinance of June 6, 1653 that legally sets the place apart and declares, "It shall ever bee for a Common Buriall place, and never be impropriated by any."

A later record notes the appointment of the sexton

Whose work is to order youth in the meeting-house, sweep the meeting-house, and beat out dogs, for which he is to have 40"s." a year : he is also to make all graves ; for a man or woman he is to have 4"s.", for children, 2"s." a grave, to be paid by survivors Harv|Caulkins|1860|p=111.

Seventeenth century New London was yet a rough and isolated corner of early colonial Connecticut. Private internments were not customary, and this was the only common burial place.

The dead were brought in from a distance of six or seven miles (11 km), either carried in hurdles, or borne on a bier upon men's shoulders; large companies assembling, and relieving each other at convenient distances Harv|Prentis|Caulkins|1899|p=7.

Few of the early graves ever had inscribed markers. The New London of that time possessed no skilled stonecutters, and those early planters simply had not the means. A few surviving families did, however, seek to address the deficiency in later years. At least four stones dated in the 1600s have been found that could not have been placed before 1720 Harv|Slater|1987|p=221.

Otherwise

If the best man in the community was struck down, his companions could do no more to testify their regret, than to lay him reverently in the grave, and seal it with a rude granite ... broken with ponderous mallets from some neighboring ledge and wearily dragged with ropes to the place and laid over the remains to secure them from disturbance, and mark the spot where a brother was buried Harv|Prentis|Caulkins|1899|p=6.

As time wore away the unadorned burial hillocks, the older were, "covered over with fresh deposits of the dead, so that the numbers here cannot be estimated by the evidences that now remain ... Yet here undoubtably [sic] were deposited nearly the whole generation of our first settlers" Harv|Prentis|Caulkins|1899|pp=5,7.

Notable persons buried here

*Thomas Short (1682-1712): [http://www.cslib.org/newspaper/newshistory.htm Operated first printing press in Connecticut, 1709-1712] . Printer (1710) of The Saybrook Platform.

*Gurdon Saltonstall (1666-1724): Governor of the Colony of Connecticut, 1708-1724. [http://www.cslib.org/gov/saltonstallg.htm]

*Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727): Author (1704) of "The Journal of Madame Knight." (ISBN 1-55709-115-3). [http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit03/authors-3.html]

*Joshua Hempstead (1678-1758): Farmer, surveyor, carpenter, gravestone carver, trader, petty attorney, public official, and diarist. Author of "Diary of Joshua Hempstead of New London, Connecticut, 1711-1758." (ISBN 0-9607744-1-6). [http://www.ctheritage.org/encyclopedia/ctto1763/hempstead.htm]

*Lucretia Harris Shaw (1737-1781): Wife of Captain Nathaniel Shaw, Jr. She turned her home into a hospital and nursed wounded and sick soldiers returning from the infamous British prison ships at Wallabout Bay Harv|Shiel|2004. Resultantly, she contracted the "Gaol Fever" herself and succumbed. The New London chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution is named in her honor; and her house, the Shaw-Perkins Mansion, has since 1907 been preserved as the headquarters of the New London County Historical Society Harv|Claghorn|2003. [http://www.rootsweb.com/~ctlscdar/lucretia.html]

Notes

References

* Harvard reference
Last = Caulkins
Initials = F.M.
Title = History of New London, Connecticut
Publisher = The author
Place = New London
Year = 1860
Edition = 2nd
ID = LCCN|26|0|23774

* Harvard reference
Last = Claghorn
Initials = C.E. III
Title = Washington's Travels In New England: A Chronological Itinerary
Publisher = Florida Society - Sons of the American Revolution
URL = http://www.flssar.org/wash-tvl.html
Year = 2003
Access-date = 2006-10-22 Mrs. Shaw. (See entry for April 9, 1776.)

* Harvard reference
Last1 = Prentis
Initials1 = E.
Last2 = Caulkins
Initials2 = F.M.
Title = Ye Antient Buriall Place of New London, Conn.
Publisher = Day Publishing
Place = New London
Year = 1899
ID = LCCN|00|000|181

* Harvard reference
Last = Shiel
Initials = J.
Title = Early History of Lucretia Shaw Chapter
Publisher = Lucretia Shaw Chapter - Daughters of the American Revolution
URL = http://www.rootsweb.com/~ctlscdar/history.html
Year = 2004
Access-date = 2006-10-22

* Harvard reference
Last = Slater
Initials = J.A.
Title = The Colonial Burying Grounds of Eastern Connecticut and The Men Who Made Them
Publisher = Archon Books
Place = Hamden
Year = 1987
ID = ISBN 0-208-02160-4
*cite web
url = http://newlondongazette.com/cemetry.html
title = Antientest Burial Ground 1652
work = The New London Gazette
publisher = Oldham Publishing
accessdate = 2006-10-22 Historical sketch.

*cite web
url = http://newlondongazette.com/name.html
title = How New London, Connecticut, Got Its Name
work = The New London Gazette
publisher = Oldham Publishing
accessdate = 2006-10-22 Early names of settlement and river.

*cite web
url = http://nlparksconservancy.org/burial.html
title = Ye Ancientest Burial Ground
publisher = [http://nlparksconservancy.org/ New London Parks Conservancy]
accessdate = 2006-10-22
quote = Park size: 1.5 acres (6,000 m²)

*cite web
url = Gnis3|1931738
title = Ye Antientist Burial Ground
work = Geographic Names Information System Feature Detail Report
publisher = U.S. Geological Survey Coordinates, elevation, and accepted place names.

External links

* [http://www.cslib.org/cemetery.htm Research Guide to Cemetery Resources at the Connecticut State Library]
* [http://www.gravestonestudies.org/index.htm The Association for Gravestone Studies]

Further reading

* Harvard reference
Last = Forbes
Initials = H.M.
Title = Gravestones of Early New England and the Men Who Made Them 1653-1800
Publisher = DaCapo Press
Place = New York
Year = 1927
Edition = 1967 reprint
ID = LCCN|67|0|27452

* cite paper
author = Stewart, D.J.
title = 'Rocks and storms I'll fear no more': Anglo-American maritime memorialization, 1700-1940
version =
publisher = Texas A&M University
date = 2004-09-30
url = http://handle.tamu.edu/1969.1/502
format =

ee also

* New London, Connecticut