Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC
www.historypress.net
Copyright 2017 by Ron Romano
All rights reserved
All images are the property of the author unless otherwise noted.
Front cover: photos by Holly Doggett.
First published 2017
e-book edition 2017
ISBN 978.1.43966.299.1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017945019
print edition ISBN 978.1.62585.996.9
Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
In memory of my father
and
with love to my motherA most interesting hour may be spent among the monuments in the Eastern
Cemetery, the oldest in town.
Samuel Adams Drake, 1891ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To all my fellow volunteers at Spirits Alive (the nonprofit Friends of Eastern Cemetery), thank you. Four deserve special mention for their contributions to this book: President Janet Alexander (photographs and content advice), chief conservator Martha Zimicki (my beta reader and sounding board), Holly Doggett (sketches and advice) and Diane Brakeley (maps). All deserve a shout-out for their ongoing support: Vana Carmona, Walter Christie, Bill Dalbec, Angela Dexter, Barb Hager, Steve Harding, Corissa Haury, Elena Lippolis, Nikki Meserve, Matt Mueller, Anne Payson, Dave Smith, John Voyer, Pete Weigel, Sarah Whitmore and Alessa Wylie.
Thank you to everyone at Maine Historical Society. I enjoy doing research at the Brown Library, and those visits are always made better by Tiffany Link, Nick Noyes, Jamie Rice and Bill Barry. I also appreciate the help and enthusiastic support received from John Babin, Cindy Murphy, Melissa Spoerl and Sofia Yalouris.
A tip of my hat to MOCA, the Maine Old Cemetery Association; MCMA, the Maine Charitable Mechanic Association; and AGS, the Association for Gravestone Studies. Im a proud dues-paying member of these organizations and rely on them heavily. Though Ive come to know a great many people associated with them, I give special book-related thanks to Perri Black, Jessica Couture, Debi Curry, Art Gaffar, Pat Larrabee, Dennis Montagna, Beth Santore and Cheryl Willis Patten.
Thank you to Joe Dumais, Portlands cemetery superintendent and parks coordinator. While the city owns Eastern Cemetery and is responsible for its upkeep, Joe continues to be a terrific partner to Spirits Alive as we do our spring clean-ups, host visitors on walking tours, trim trees and shrubs and, most importantly, conserve gravestones. His summer park rangers are always helpful. Together, Spirits Alive and the City of Portland are bringing Eastern Cemetery back to life.
To those who offered images or shared their subject expertise with me, thank you: Matt Barker, Mike Daicy, Jim Durbin, Steve Earley, Laurel Gabel, Max Gordon, Andy Grannell, June Hadden Hobbs, Kingsley Itsede, Marilyn Weymouth Seguin and Lenny Telesca.
Finally, thanks to my spouse, family and friends, most of whom understand that I am currently under a spell regarding old gravestones that I cant seem to shakeand many of whom go happily along for the ride.
INTRODUCTION
As leader of the walking tours program for the Friends of Eastern Cemetery (Spirits Alive), I have the honorand, admittedly, the funof creating the script for our volunteer tour guides. Each year, we get better at honing in on what our visitors find most interesting about the historic burial ground and then revising the script to reflect those interests. Walking tours often focus on the famous, but just as interesting to me are the stories of the regular people who, for only a day or perhaps a full lifetime, walked the streets of Portland. I start each chapter of this book with a snippet about these regular people whose journeys ended at Eastern Cemetery. Their stories are gleaned from the burial records and are told in just a few sentences, but they help paint a picture of the community at the time they lived, through their occupations, families and ultimately their causes of death.
Eastern Cemetery is a truly unique place: its the earliest historic landscape in Portland, designated in 1668. Its in the National Register of Historic Places (1973) and received historic cemetery designation by the city in 1990. Its full of interesting stories that reflect more than 350 years of the lives and times of the local people. At rest are seventeenth-century settlers who struggled with the natives over land and resources, eighteenth-century people who had to choose their allegiance either to the king or independence and nineteenth-century abolitionists fighting for the end of slavery.
Two early historians of Portland, William Willis and William Goold, included Eastern Cemetery in their work; I recommend those books for their nineteenth-century consideration of the history of the burial ground. In fact, the subtitle of this book comes from Goold, who in 1886 called the cemetery a field of ancient graves. The journals kept by Portlands ministers, the Reverends Thomas Smith and Samuel Deane, also provide a fascinating look at everyday life in early Portland. For more modern views, I have three recommendations: Bill Jordans 1987 Burial Records, 17171962, of the Eastern Cemetery, a list of interments with some history; the Chicora Foundations 2011 Master Plan for Eastern Cemetery, available on the Spirits Alive website; and my 2016 book, Early Gravestones in Southern Maine: The Genius of Bartlett Adams.
I previously published two papers about the cemetery and have drawn from them for this book. How Many People Are Buried Here? (published in 2015) is now . The full papers are available in the Maine Historical Societys collections for Eastern Cemetery.
A few other notes:
Eastern Cemetery is located on Portland Neck, which is the peninsula that consists of the downtown section of todays city. It stretches about three miles from the Eastern Promenade to the Western Promenade and about one mile from Portland Harbor to Back Cove. Before taking the name Portland, this area was known as Falmouth, which today is the town just northeast. I use Neck, peninsula and Portland throughout this book when referring to the area that is, in fact, todays city of Portland.
On a related note, Maine was a district of Massachusetts until 1820, when it gained statehood. For the purpose of clarity, I refer to Maine and Massachusetts as they exist todayseparate states.
The cemetery has been referred to as the Burrying Place, Burying Ground, Common Burying Ground, East Yard, East Cemetery and todays official name, Eastern Cemetery. They are all the same place.
My first book, Early Gravestones in Southern Maine: The Genius of Bartlett Adams, told the story of Portlands resident stonecutter, who created a wonderful collection of slate and marble grave markers two hundred years ago, many of which can still be found. This book goes beyond Bartlett, exploring both the history and occupants of the cemetery itself, and includes some new and interesting discoveries. Well covered here are my findings about how some of the minority segments of Portlands population were separated from the majority, even in death.
