Gravestone Chronicles: Some Eighteenth-Century New England Carvers and Their Work

"Where Angels Fear to Tread": Cemetery Preservation Efforts by the Massachusetts Historical Commission

“…Preliminary information on the history of the cemetery and the project suggested that impacts to unmarked graves and scattered human remains were likely, given the age of the cemetery and the 19th-century exhumations that had been performed. Gravestone scholars have documented commemorative markers erected several years prior to or years after death and removed, reused, recarved, replaced, rearranged, and restored gravestones: all a striking reminder of the dynamic nature of cemetery landscapes (Bell 1991). Grave markers may no longer accurately delineate the location of graves; exhumation efforts are typically incomplete; and unmarked interments are likely to be present in historical cemeteries.…”