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Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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Graveyards of Chicago:
The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries
By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski. Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
Green-Wood Cemetery Arcadia Publishing announces the release of Alexandra Mosca's historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery and to browse other available titles!
Men of Mortuaries Calendar
To purchase your 2008 calendar, learn more about the KAMMCARES Foundation, or to be featured in the 2009 calendar, please visit Men of Mortuaries.
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman is now
available. Please visit
Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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Green is Unique, Thanks to the Old Center Cemetery |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Monday, 28 March 2005 |
Green is Unique, Thanks to the Old Center Cemetery
Published on 3/28/2005
New London Day
North Haven, CT -- The Green in North Haven looks like most New England greens: the square is lined with historic buildings and there is a plaque discussing the town's history. The notable difference.
between North Haven's Green and others is the presence of The Old Center Cemetery, which takes up about half of the Green.
The Old Center Cemetery is home to many prominent area family names and beautiful gravestone carvings. The Old Center Cemetery adds so much to the cultural and historic character
of North Haven that a town resident who works at the North Haven Historical Society has written an entire book on the subject.
Gloria H. Furnival is the author of (IT)On-The-Green: The Old Center Cemetery in North Haven, Connecticut 1723-1882. Furnival has lived in North Haven since 1960 and is very spirited when talking about the cemetery. Historically, the New England town green was an important meeting place and this
almost always meant it was where the town church was located.
In North Haven, The Old Center Cemetery was started as a burial ground for The First Ecclesiastical Society, which today is The Congregational Church. Although the burial ground
was initially for members of that church, over time other families were buried there. While there weren't family plots reserved for only one family, many families did end up with multiple members buried there.
Prominent North Haven and New Haven families can be traced back to the Old Center Cemetery. For example, Bassett, Blakeslee, Bradley, Cooper, Ives, Mansfield, Pierpont, Smith, Stiles, Todd, and Tuttle are among the familiar names found on
tombstones in The Old Center Cemetery. Furnival's book focuses on the elaborate and beautiful detail that went into old-fashioned gravestone carving.
In 1723 when the cemetery came into use, a popular motif, the winged death's head, had been being used for almost 50 years throughout New England. Furnival's book points out that this
emblem had been "used since medieval times, and reflected the harsh, ambivalent Puritan attitudes about death." The winged death's head stopped appearing around the 1750's and was replaced by winged cherubs, which "reflected a more optimistic
attitude."
Stopping in at the cemetery, one can see the difference between these two motifs. One very interesting double cherub gravestone to take a peek at is the grave of Zerah and Sackett
Blakeslee, who died within a day of each other in 1776. The reason for their deaths is unknown.
Why weren't the gravestones get moved to a newer cemetery? In other New England towns, for example New Haven and Guilford, when a new cemetery was buil,t the old gravestones were moved from the Green. This idea was proposed in North Haven in 1881 by Donald Grant Mitchell, resulting in a protest by many residents and historians. North Haven, however, wanted to keep
its history intact, and right in the center of town.
To find out more and to learn about the families buried in The Old Center Cemetery, visit the North Haven Historical Society on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 1 and 4:30 in The Cultural
Center at 27 Broadway. Copies of (IT)On-The-Green: The Old Center Cemetery in North Haven, Connecticut 1723-1882 are available at the Historical Society and at Belvedere Framing
at 10 Church St.
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