Pineland cemetery query

From time to time I receive queries from folks trying to find the graves of members of their family long passed. Most recently I received a request to assist a genealogical quest for the cemetery holding the remains of those who died while residing at Pineland.

The Pineland cemetery was given over to the town of New Gloucester's Cemetery Association for perpetual care in 1997.

People interested in finding family members' graves can search the Pineland interments on record here:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&CRid=2464976

The FindAGrave.com site also has information on where the cemetery is located.

I mention this because the FindAGrave.com site is a great resource for anyone looking for burial sites. As volunteers add to the site, more and more graves are available to be searched as they are indexed and photographed.

If you find yourself using the site, think also about adding your own efforts to the database. Every little bit of information added in might be the piece of a puzzle which helps another researcher link to their past!

For more information on adding to the site: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=listFaqs#16

A love of grave matters

The Journal Tribune ran a great article recently, in which they interviewed Patricia Mayo about her love of cemeteries. Her graveyard pursuits are not unlike those of many of us who find a fascination in the toppled rows of stone markers that fill acres of the Maine landscape. The article talks about some interesting epitaphs, how Mayo got started on this hobby, and much more.

Patricia Mayo likes to wander around in cemeteries. She can spend hours in them, especially the old ones, taking in the artwork of the stones and marveling at the poetic inscriptions.

“Some people look at me like I’m really weird,” she said, but cemetery viewing is actually a rather common hobby, with enthusiasts seeing the acres of plots as a sort of museum.

For Mayo, her visits are about remembering – the people, the history and the art of the monuments.

Read the full article here: [Source]

The photo above is one I took myself, during one of my own boneyard forays. This one was taken exactly two years ago, on Christmas Eve 2006, in Fort Fairfield, in a small family cemetery well off the main road. I've visited many cemeteries throughout New England and New Brunswick, such as (click links below for a selection of photos)...

more from the small Fort Fairfield family plot, Maine

Evergreen Cemetery, Portland, Maine

Western Cemetery, Portland, Maine

Litchfield Plains cemetery, Litchfield, Maine

Topsfield Cemetery, Topsfield, Massachusetts

Catholic cemetery, Woodstock, New Brunswick

Haunting South Oakfield graveyard

This is a brief but excellent photo essay by Nate (a.k.a. Ravenwing) about the South Oakfield, Maine, cemetery that I found online at fourthirdsphoto.com

South Oakfield met decline and finally oblivion soon after the advent of the railroad, with a few farms holding on into the 1930’s, but is now wholly forested, marked only with a few cellar holes, and a small cemetery. Since moving here some 25 years ago, the South Oakfield cemetery has held a certain fascination for me.

If ever a place can be haunted, this place is. I don’t mean haunted in the ‘scary’ sense, but when I visit this little cemetery, the feelings of dreams unfulfilled, geographical isolation, and human despair seem thick in the air. It is quiet, peaceful, even beautiful in a way, yet an indescribably sad place. I went there the other day, my first visit in several years, and found it much as I left it, though if anything more lonely and perhaps a bit more dilapidated than ever.

It is rugged, and stony ground surrounded by forest, accessible only by several miles of rough and narrow gravel road over steep hills and across northern bogs.

Read full essay and view all the photos here: [Source]

Maine Green Burial Update

Hi all, here's an update on the Orrington "green cemetery" I've been mentioning. The town meeting has occurred, and it looks like everything is going ahead for later this year. Plots will be priced at $300. Nok-Noi Hauger reports for the Bangor Daily News:

"It’s an environmentally friendly cemetery where everything that goes in [the ground] is biodegradable," said Richard Harriman, Orrington code enforcement officer. "That means [biodegradable] wooden caskets, and if you don’t want a wooden casket, you can go in wrapped in Grandma’s rug or as ashes."

A "green" cemetery requires that bodies not be embalmed or be embalmed with nontoxic fluid, caskets be biodegradable, and graves be marked only by simple, flat native stones, with or without engravings.

Native vegetation also could be used to replace conventional gravestones.

Some green cemeteries have plotted lots and others have randomly placed graves, which would be the case in Orrington.

"Some people prefer a [traditional] burial, and some people prefer a natural burial, and some people prefer a burial at sea," said Peter Neal, spokesman for the Brunswick-based Maine Funeral Directors Association. "This is another option."

As a cemetery, the green space would be protected forever from economic development.

The land in Orrington is owned by retired nurse and schoolteacher Ellen Hills, 86, of Solon. She came up with the idea after reading an AARP article in July 2004.
Read more: [Source]

"Grisly Discovery" in Lyman

What would I do without the New England Anomaly? Especially now that I'm not in front of a computer all day, things like this escape me. But they do not escape the keen eye of the deadly duo of Cranky Yankee and Amos Quito!

Man Accidentally Digs Up 1812 Soldier's Body
Family To Rebury Remains
POSTED: 11:38 am EST January 29, 2007

LYMAN, Maine -- A man who was digging with a backhoe on his property in southern Maine unearthed a War of 1812 soldier's family plot.

"Somehow or another I wound up with a body. It was quite a shock," said Roland Nadeau, who made the grisly discovery last summer.

Nadeau's wife, Pauline, said the family had owned the York County property for 10 years. They had heard rumors that a soldier's grave was in the area, but no one knew exactly where it was or what war he had fought in.

Nadeau's backhoe found the site when it pulled up what turned out to be a man's leg bone.

The Nadeaus notified the local police, who in turn called Maine State Police and the Medical Examiner's Office.

They excavated the rest of the body and found an oval medallion in mint condition, about 3 by 6 inches, inscribed with the name Charles Kimball and his birth date. A few days later, another body turned up, along with part of a casket and some lead lining.

The Medical Examiner's Office returned and removed the additional remains, covered the area with a tarp and some soil and told Nadeau to stop digging.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press.
[Source]

The rest of the story can be found here.

Green Burial Getting Closer

It's been almost a year since my original post on the potential placement of a "green" burial ground here in Maine. I thought I'd e-mail Ernie Marriner, of the Funeral Consumer Alliance, who was one of the people working on the project, and find out what progress, if any, had been made towards it.

The news is good, and progress is being made, slowly but surely. The current step is working with the Orrington Planning Board to hold a "Pre-Application Conference" for the project at their January 2007 meeting. According to Mr. Marriner, if that goes well, the next step is to submit a formal application for Site Plan Approval in February or March.

Myriad other tasks must also be gotten under way, from completion of soil testing, to surveying, to navigation and execution of a complex pile of legal documents. In closing, Mr. Marriner stated, "An optimistic opening date for the cemetery is July, 2007." Sounds pretty exciting, all 'round. As one of the greenest states around, Maine could sure use a green burial ground for itself.