# Old and/or abandoned cemeteries **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 11, 2024, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-and-or-abandoned-cemeteries/1000155 "2024-04-11T14:39:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2024, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-and-or-abandoned-cemeteries/1000155/62 "2024-04-16T11:58:36Z")
This marker remains standing in a Montreal cemetery… [TRUE STORY, SEEN WITH MY OWN EYES. | In the Notre-Dame-Des-N… | Flickr](https://www.flickr.com/photos/themensp/2471034806) ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2024, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-and-or-abandoned-cemeteries/1000155/63 "2024-04-16T12:55:18Z")
[Old St. Joseph’s Cemetery](https://www.google.com/local/place/fid/0x89b76e367dd54069:0x7c5e22fe05e2fe49/photosphere?iu=https://streetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com/v1/thumbnail?panoid%3DhFcIGra4RoB0APC002AkLQ%26cb_client%3Dlu.gallery.gps%26w%3D160%26h%3D106%26yaw%3D342.16873%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100&ik=CAISFmhGY0lHcmE0Um9CMEFQQzAwMkFrTFE%3D) (circa 1759) is about a mile from my house. It was last used around 1991 - there’s a [newer one](https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/81515/saint-josephs-parish-cemetery) just up the hill and directly across the street from the church. There’s nothing personal about it other than I pass it frequently on my way south. I’ve only lived around here since 2004 - my mom and sibs still live around Baltimore. Sadly, it’s been vandalized and several times, cars have gone off the road and taken out the fence. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2024, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-and-or-abandoned-cemeteries/1000155/64 "2024-04-16T14:25:37Z")
Quaker burial grounds that were subsequently forgotten are a thing here (England). The Quakers would not be buried in Church of England churchyards, and preferred to raise no memorials or gravestones and sometimes people find, during extensions etc. that their houses have been built on top of a Quaker burying ground. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2024, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-and-or-abandoned-cemeteries/1000155/65 "2024-04-16T15:08:40Z")
What I find fascinating are tiny cemetereies – I call them “vvest pocket” cemeteries, after the tiont “vest pocket” parks in NYC – that there seem to be several of in Massachusetts. The **Curtis-Very Cemetery** looks as if it was crammed in as an afterthought between two houses near a branch fire department in Peabody, Massachusetts. It looks as if it has about three graves and a mausoleum intruding on somebody’s side yard There are quite a few such tiny family cemeteries in Peabody, but most aren’t as prominent or as well-marked ass this one. [https://www.peabody-ma.gov/historical\_comm/HistoricalCemeterylistPHC](https://www.peabody-ma.gov/historical_comm/HistoricalCemeterylistPHC)).pdf There’s also the single grave of George washington Flint on Route 1 in Peabody not far from me: > **[Tombstones and Donuts On Old Route 1](https://theoccasionalceo.blogspot.com/2012/05/when-commerce-overtakes-history-story.html)** > > A blog about management, leadership, history, and business history. > **[The Unsolved 19th-Century Mystery in the Parking Lot](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/the-unsolved-19th-century-mystery-in-the-parking-lot)** > > Why is there a lone gravestone in a parking lot in Peabody, Massachusetts—and what happened to its occupant? Discover the sad story of George W. Flint. And the Moulton Family plot literally on Route 1 in West Peabody , hemmed in by a gas station (which takes care of cutting the grass and such) > **[Moulton Burial Ground in West Peabody, Massachusetts - Find a Grave Cemetery](https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2443289/moulton-burial-ground)** > > There are three stones at this location. Two slate stones are set off to the side. The third stone is in the center and contains all 11 names. The... Much further down Route 1 in New Brunswick, NJ there’s the single gravestone of Mary Ellis, surrounded by the parking lot of the AMC movie theater complex [Mary Ellis grave - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ellis_grave#:~:text=The%20Mary%20Ellis%20grave%20is,marked%20on%20the%20grave%20itself). ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2024, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-and-or-abandoned-cemeteries/1000155/66 "2024-04-16T15:44:52Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > Quaker burial grounds that were subsequently forgotten are a thing here (England). The Quakers would not be buried in Church of England churchyards, and preferred to raise no memorials or gravestones and sometimes people find, during extensions etc. that their houses have been built on top of a Quaker burying ground. It wasn’t so much that Quaker graves were unmarked as that Quakers were unsentimental and very practical about them. There were cases where, because they already owned the land, they built over existing graveyards when building new meeting houses. Some sites were also acquired by new non-Quaker owners in the full knowledge of that was there. An example would be [the site of the Brighton Dome](https://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discovery/history-stories/the-quaker-burial-ground-on-the-royal-pavilion-estate/), most famous as the venue for the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-and-or-abandoned-cemeteries/1000155/67 "2024-04-17T01:47:49Z")
The ones that haven’t been built over, the really old ones look like rolling waves of grass. There is one in Nantucket. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2024, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-and-or-abandoned-cemeteries/1000155/68 "2024-04-17T06:17:44Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > My Dad remembered a long-forgotten one in Hastings County, Ontario (he was originally from Hastings County), and he took me there once. It was buried in the forest, and it was definitely abandoned and old—I don’t think any gravestone listed a date past 1910 or so, and the trees and their roots had tilted or knocked over a number of stones. We had a couple of great-great ancestors in there, and we found their stones. > > But it had the most unusual gravestone I’ve ever seen: a tripod of iron stakes which culminated in a hook at the top, from which hung a granite heart, naming the decedent buried beneath, and her dates. Found it! It’s White Lake Pioneer Cemetery, just off Ontario Highway 62, north of Ivanhoe: > **[Creepy](https://ominous.app/browse/album/6780)** > > Album uploaded by UnLeashed\_Photography The album at the link has many great photos of gravestones among the trees, but it does have the tripod with the granite heart that I mentioned earlier: [![](https://d3bpzgarlwg4yy.cloudfront.net/Photo/134074/image/medium/White-Lake-Pioneer-Cemetery50.jpg) ](https://d3bpzgarlwg4yy.cloudfront.net/Photo/134074/image/medium/White-Lake-Pioneer-Cemetery50.jpg) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-and-or-abandoned-cemeteries/1000155.md?page=3)