New Hampshire
Old Graveyard Association
The
spring meeting of the New Hampshire Old Graveyard Association was held May
12, 2001 at the Plummer Homestead of the New Hampshire Farm Museum in Milton,
NH. President Joan Casarotto presided.
Clark
Bagnall read the minutes of the Fall 2000 meeting; they were approved with
one correction. Doris Ashton announced the schedule for our 2001 meetings.
Doris Ashton, Corresponding Secretary reported that she needs articles for
the Rubbings.
Jean
Mertinooke gave the annual Treasurer's report; she reported a balance on hand
of $2,488.59. Doris Ashton read the Auditor's report, prepared by Ann Sottery.
No significant discrepancies in the Treasurer's accounts were found.
Louise
Tallman gave the records custodian's report. She noted that the cost of copying
the maps has gone down. Much of her work has been in mapping the sites on
the USGS maps. She has sent copies of the maps to several towns. Any one town
may spread across several maps. Louise
also maintains a file folder on each town. If the town has a coding system
for their sites, those codes are used; otherwise Louise assigns a code for
each site. A few towns remain to be done. A few others may need to be converted
from latitude and longitude to the UTM coordinates used by NHOGA. It was noted
that the copies of USGS maps are not free. The Board will look into the costs
and decide on the appropriate reimbursement.
Since
Louise is retiring as Records Custodian, the Board presented her with a new
printer for her computer in recognition of her many years of hard work. Clark
Bagnall noted the excellent quality of her work, and pointed out that the
database Louise created is now the basis for our web site.
Bonnie
Dutton spoke on Milton Cemeteries. She had invited Judge Eugene Nute to the
meeting, but he was unable to attend. Bonnie noted that since the original
survey of sites, several more have been found. Some are only single graves.
There are some cases of known burials near old cellar holes, but the actual
location has not been found.
Bonnie
mentioned the two sites that were planned for the afternoon's tour. The first
site was established by the Hayes family in 1873. Not long after it was sold
to the Nute family. The receiving tomb reads Hayes, but it is known as the
Nute cemetery. The right to be buried in this cemetery for free has been granted
to all residents of East Milton. Some of the stones date from the time of
the Civil War, some even earlier. There are many Nute and Varney family burials.
There are also a few fieldstone markers. The Nute family has been very philanthropic.
The trust fund that they established for this site exceeds its expenses. The
second cemetery to be visited is even older. It has stones for Revolutionary
War veterans.
Florence
Davis, the new Director of the Farm Museum, was the next speaker. Previously
she had worked for the Mary Ball Washington Museum in Virginia, located at
Lancaster Court House. Also included are the old Clerk's office and an old
jail. The museum had a genealogical library with a card index that recorded
the name of every person in every book. There were difficulties in researching
old slave cemeteries. The primary problems were insects and poison ivy. Some
gravestones were found in an old archaeological site. Lancaster County has
many old records that were preserved by hiding them during the Civil War.
Later these records were stored in the courthouse, the clerk's office and
the jail. None of these buildings had electricity or running water. Before
WWII a group was formed to preserve the old buildings. They obtained legal
responsibility for the structures. The jail was the first restored. 125 years
of graffiti was painted over. The group was incorporated in 1958. Their document
collection consists of 2000 items and their physical collection has 500. They
are always discovering new documents and cemetery sites. Several original
deeds were discovered, signed by colonial governors, including Thomas Jefferson.
There are many Civil War records. One document was signed by an Indian named
Turtle-at-home. Many of the documents relate to domestic items. Some of the
documents were still in the original families. These documents should be donated
to a museum for proper conservation. Color copies can be made so that the
family will have a record. Never hang old documents on the wall. Physical
items placed on display must be allowed to rest for the same length of time
they were displayed. A laboratory has been established to restore old Civil
War battle flags.
Memorial
Day was an important holiday. Families frequently had picnics in the cemetery
to celebrate the day. City cemeteries were the first public spaces.
Lancaster County is a very rural county. Steamboats were a primary means of transportation for the period from 1828 to 1938. Many family reunions are held in the area. Tobacco farming was a common occupation. Tobacco is a very labor-intensive crop. Seeds are planted in seedbeds in January and transferred to the fields in April through June. A hogshead of tobacco weighs about 1000 pounds. Much of the local economy was based on barter. By tradition, the tobacco industry operates without any written contracts, a practice that is still observed today.
Clark
Bagnall gave the computer committee report. The programming language is being
changed from Visual Basic to C++ to give more control over the program format.
Work meetings were held over the winter. Trina Purcell displayed the new forms
for recording cemetery information. These forms were also published in the
spring issue of the Rubbings.
Louise
Tallman noted that a cemetery in her area had been involved in a traffic accident.
The stones will be replaced using insurance money. Louise was able to provide
the complete wording for each damaged stone including capitalization and line
breaks. This demonstrates the importance of keeping complete cemetery records.
Trina
Purcell was thanked for the work she did in creating the Association's new
logo. The logo made its first appearance on the cover of the spring Rubbings.
The
Nominating Committee presented the following slate of officers for the coming
year:
President
-- Joan Casarotto
First
Vice President -- Barbara Benoit
Second
Vice President -- Ingrid Smith
Recording
Secretary -- Clark Bagnall
Corresponding
Secretary -- Doris Ashton
Treasurer
-- Jean Mertinooke
Auditor
-- Ann Sottery
Records
Custodian -- Trina Purcell
Scrapbook
Custodian -- Nancy Van Doorn
The
slate was elected.
Dr.
Don Linebaugh, who spoke at our previous meeting, will speak in Bradford in
July.
After
lunch we toured the two cemeteries mentioned above.
Respectfully
submitted,
Clark
H Bagnall
Recording
Secretary.