Old cemeteries are cool (part 2)

In first blog post, I shared my visit to the Center Cemetery in East Hartford, the second burying ground authorized for what was then Hartford. That made me curious to see the original burial ground for Hartford, the Ancient Burying Ground. So this past weekend I took my bike and went for a visit.

According to the Ancient Burying Ground Association, it is:

“…the oldest historic site in Hartford, and the only one surviving from the 1600s. From 1640, four years after the arrival of the first English settlers, down until the early 1800s, it was Hartford’s first and foremost graveyard.”

Monument to the first settlers in Hartford
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It is surprisingly small (4 acres), but apparently it was much larger at one point and the city has slowly crept in on it. It is unclear what happened to the “residents” occupying that land, but according to the above website, as many as 90% of the people who were buried there didn’t have any marker.  Today, the cemetery is located in the middle of downtown Hartford, between a high-rise office building known as the Gold Building, and the historic Center Church.  It was surprising to read that the restoration efforts at such a treasured site like this only started in 1985.

Reflection of the Center Church in the Gold Building, taken from the cemetery
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Small gravestones
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