I dare you! ‘Fraidy cat! Cluck, cluck, chicken! I double dare you! It’s a rite of passage: walk through a cemetery all alone in the dark of night and live to brag to your buddies. Any Harvard youth facing this test of mettle can gain courage through knowledge. Familiarity with the territory diminishes its mysteries.

The Town Center Cemetery

At the Center Cemetery grand granite monuments contrast with older blue slate stones. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Plaque on the former hearse house in the Center Cemetery.

One of the first things the people of Harvard did with the land given to them to form a new town was to set aside space for a burying ground. This burial place was laid out at the foot of Meetinghouse Plain, with the meetinghouse at the head. The gravedigger was one of the town’s officials, chosen at the annual town meeting. Until 1808, when the town bought a hearse and harness, coffins were borne to the grave on a bier carried by neighbors of the deceased. The first hearse house was at the top of the Common and was moved to a site within the cemetery in 1821; in 1846 it was replaced by the present white wooden building. (The smaller brick building in the cemetery is the town’s public tomb, built in 1884 as a temporary resting place for deceased when circumstances, such as frozen ground, would not permit immediate burial.) In 1766 Town Meeting voted to fence in the burying ground, located behind the Congregational church, with a stone wall four and a half feet high. Male residents could pay an assessment, or they could build a portion of the wall. This original wall was replaced in 1886, using money willed to the town for this purpose by Edward Lawrence.

The first burial in the old grounds was that of a child, Elizabeth Willard. Like many other of the early graves, hers is unmarked. The first stone memorial dates to 1734. These earliest grave markers were made of the blue slate that was quarried on Pin Hill. Surrounding towns probably used this slate as well, and the quarrying and carving of slate became one of Harvard’s first industries. By the middle of the 1800s marble and granite replaced slate as the choice materials for gravestones. The building of tombs was authorized in 1827 and a total of 12 were subsequently built. In his History of Harvard (1894) Henry Nourse voices his strong opinion on these new memorials:

One of the early gravestone designs found in the Center Cemetery.

“The portions of the ground earliest occupied, thickly set with low memorials of native slate, in simplicity present an eloquent contrast to the newer lots, loaded with costly obelisks or elaborate monuments of imported marble and polished granite.”

The first gravestones were decorated with only a simple lined border, and the inscriptions were in small block letters. By the 1740s many stones had curved tops adorned by a stark, simple death’s head and sides that tapered to the ground as if the stone itself were a coffin. The borders were decorated with scrolls and other circular figures, and the lettering was in script, not just block letters. The epitaphs themselves were simple and straightforward in their acknowledgment of death. Most began with “Here lies the body of” followed by the name of the deceased and a detail or two of relationship (wife of, son of, etc.) and then the words “who died” and the date of death, ending with the age of the departed given in years, months, and days.

Later in the century, gravestone design changed significantly. The stones were larger, with parallel rather than slanting sides. The death’s head was replaced by the now-familiar chubby-faced winged cherub, and the borders were elaborate intertwining leaves and vines. This new design offered the idea of immortality, and inscriptions often began, “Here lie the remains of” “who departed this life…”

From the 1770s until the end of the century, epitaphs were much more elaborate, with quotations from Scriptures or verses by anonymous poets, often tending to the pious: “She’s bidden worldly vanity/And mortal bliss adieu.” Around the turn of the century, a weeping willow and a draped urn replaced the cherub as popular designs of grieving, and inscriptions often began with the more worldly phrase, “In memory of.” These changing styles in gravestones reflect changing aesthetic taste and also seem to represent a changing attitude toward death itself.

The epitaphs in the old burying ground in the center of town reveal a great deal not only about individual lives but also about the early life of the town. Robert Anderson in Directions of a Town (1993) notes that the gravestone of Andrew Park, “Who departed this life July 6, 1775 in his country’s service Aged 18 years 1 month and 17 days” shows the involvement of Harvard in the American Revolution. Several groups of stones document that members of the same family died within a short time of one another, suggesting how epidemic diseases affected the town. Isolated from other markers, in a corner behind the church, is a small, undecorated slate, that of Othello, “faithful friend of Henry Bromfield,” which attests to the prejudice toward Harvard’s earliest black residents. Graves of two early ministers have lengthy epitaphs listing the assets of the deceased and illustrate the special esteem in which ministers were held. Numerous graves are those of young children, suggesting again the toll of disease and high infant mortality rate; there are few markers that show an age beyond 60 years.

According to Nourse, by 1891 the old burying ground had become crowded and the town secured 16 acres west of Pin Hill for a town cemetery to be named Brookside. The land was laid out for burial purposes and one John Hutchinson was reportedly buried there. But a group of citizens became vocal in their criticism of the location, claiming that it lacked a picturesque setting and landscaping possibilities. The next year Henry Warner offered to buy a new site that would better lend itself to beauty and ornamentation, qualities considered important in a cemetery. A special town meeting accepted the generous gift, and the cemetery was renamed Bellevue, for its views of Bare Hill, the pond and the center village. John Hutchinson presumably was also relocated.

The ‘Lollipop’ Cemetery

Traveling down South Shaker Road in the northeast section of Harvard, one comes upon a most incredible sight—rows and rows of white metal stakes with round tops, like so many giant lollipops. This is the Shaker burial ground, a true gem of history.

Markers stand in rows in the Shaker “lollipop” Cemetery.

The Shakers settled in Harvard in 1783 and the last of the community left in 1918. In 1799 they designated an acre of land for a burying ground and re-interred community members from earlier resting places.

The first recorded death was that of Susannah Willard on October 3, 1792. (It is an interesting coincidence that the first grave in both the Center and Shaker cemeteries is that of a female Willard.) In his book The Shaker Holy Land, Edward Horgan states that to erect a stone wall around the burial site, “twenty-five brethren labored for eight days, assisted daily by four yoke of oxen.” Harvard resident and Shaker scholar Roben Campbell points out that the burying ground was very important to the Shakers. Since they lived a life of sacrifice and were frequently subject to persecution, it was great solace for them to be buried with like-minded people of their community. Originally, the grave markers would have been of stone, as was common among the Shaker communities; perhaps very early markers were slate from the Pin Hill quarry.

Horgan states that around 1873 iron markers were adopted for use in Harvard and at the settlement in New Lebanon, and he suggests that this occurred after a member of the community had taken a trip to the South. By the 1870s the number of Shakers in the village had dropped drastically, and the money for upkeep of the burial ground was not a high priority. Harvard resident Sydney Blackwell points out that many villages, including Harvard’s, had their own foundries, facilitating the production of iron markers. Campbell is documenting the change from stone to metal markers. She has transcribed a journal written by an elderly Shaker sister, Susan Channel, in 1879. In January of that year Channel writes:

“A year ago to day the burying ground was burnt over, this last fall it was grown up and look worst then ever and it was mowed over and brush piled up. What next?”

It is possible that Sister Susan Channel spearheaded the project for new iron markers within the village. The condition of the cemetery was in the forefront of her mind, as her much-loved companion and co-worker, Caroline King, had died in 1878. In the fall of 1879 Channel mentions the setting of cast tablets in the burial ground. And finally, on December 8, 1879, she records:

“Go to the grave-yard, the last Tablets is set.”

The Shaker Cemetery has 10 rows of about 30 graves each, of stone and metal markers. It is reflective of the ideals of the Shakers that the epitaphs on the markers are simple, raised lettering stating only the name and age of the deceased and the date of death. Because of the vow of celibacy, there are no child graves; any child in the community who died was most likely returned to the family for burial. Several markers show people who lived into their 70s.

In 1943 the Shaker Community at Lebanon, N.H., issued an official decree that individual graves be destroyed and only a single marker be used in all Shaker cemeteries, perhaps to protect the Shaker legacy from curious outsiders. This was done in Shirley. In 1941 the town of Harvard had accepted the Shaker Cemetery as a gift and had jurisdiction over it; this may be why, fortunately, no change was made to the Harvard Shaker grave markers. Over the years various individuals have worked hard to preserve this unique landmark.

The cemeteries of Harvard are places where one can indeed be double dared to feel a presence—the living history of Harvard’s past.