This is also part of the South Hadley Heritage tour. Navigate back to the tour page HERE.
Park across the street from the cemetery at the Beachgrounds parking lot.
This cemetery was started in 1839. It is in the urban cemetery fashion.
stop 1 – John Pendleton family
John Pendleton (FINDAGRAVE) settled in the James Street section of South Hadley in the late 1700s. South Hadley once was a quarter mile longer to the south along its entire border with Chicopee. In 1806 Hampshire County divided into many counties and it was agreed to bring the border of Hampden and Hampshire more to the north. The Lamb family married into the Pendleton family and it is thought that the early Lamb burials were in the Pendleton Cemetery. This early cemetery was a churchyard cemetery were the church was never built. John Pendleton left the Chicopee area and moved to near its border within South Hadley. There a village started of Baptists. The church was too expensive to build but a cemetery for these people was needed. The cemetery was moved in the 1880s to this the South Hadley Village Cemetery. In a similar view, in 1870 Elsie Morgan Pendleton is recorded in the Chicopee city data as having a burial in Chicopee yet is with a stone here. She must have been moved to this cemetery. Did the move happen in the 1870s? Hard to tell. I have search the entire death register of Chicopee from 1848 to 1880 and there are many burials of Chicopee deaths in the South Hadley Falls Cemetery but none listed into the Pine Grove Cemetery.
stop 2 – Washburn family tragedy
The Washburn family lost 5 of their children within 16 days of each other. The culprit was diphtheria. They are buried near their mother and father without a gravestone. The family through the years had lived in Chicopee, South Hadley, and Holyoke and all three communities donated money to their burial expenses. Ostenello Washburn is the only one with a stone and it is a Civil War one (FINDAGRAVE).
stop 3 – Price home
At 33 Spring Street (LOCATION) is the Price and Hyde home. This family lived there from 1840 to 1940. They are buried within this cemetery.
stop 4 – Marc Kuzma
The Findagrave memorial page for Marc Kuzma is HERE. Marc died during the Vietnam War. He is also on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall at this page. He also has a memorial along the South Hadley Canal.
stop 5 – Influenza of 1918 to 1919
Emily Rohnert during in October of 1918 due to the influenza pandemic of that year. She was born Amelia Berndt in 1889 in Poland. Her husband Alexander remarried and is buried in this cemetery. There are other 1919 influenza victims within this cemetery. The amount of deaths in Holyoke went from 1200 per year to about 2500 in 1919. Most of these deaths were in South Holyoke and second most in the Flats. This is due to its crowded nature.
Look at the nearby Crichton family stone. Robert and William died in battle in France during WW1 and Alexander and James died in the pandemic of 1919.
Not every one that died in 1918 died of the flu. From the back of the Crichton gravestone look behind you. This 10 year old boy died in the bath tub by drowning.
stop 6 – Josiah Bardwell family
Josiah Bardwell (FINDAGRAVE) ran a canal and mill business along the Connecticut River. His industrial canal opened in 1805 near the southern mouth of the South Hadley Navigational Canal.
This stone most likely started out in the Old South Hadley Cemetery where the Gaylord Library is now. In 1868 when the Evergreen Cemetery was made, many families that had loved ones buried in the old cemetery had them transferred to Evergreen. A tiny few opted to have them moved to this cemetery since the family core had moved into the Falls neighborhood. Joseph Bardwell and Sybil Smith were transferred. In that year their son Alonzo Bardwell died. With transfers on every ones mind and having Josiah Bardwell being a great success with his power canal in the Falls, the family buried Alonzo here and transferred his parents too.
stop 7 – Lamb family
The grandchildren of Daniel Lamb (FINDAGRAVE) and the children of Ezekiel Lamb (FINDAGRAVE) sold the land for this cemetery in 1839 to the South Hadley Burial Grounds association. It was called the New Burying Ground. Alonzo Lamb (FINDAGRAVE) is buried here with his children. Near his stone is the stone for his sister Nancy Lamb (FINDAGRAVE) and her family. Alonzo and Mary started this cemetery along with their brother in law Joel Miller (FINDAGRAVE). Joel was married to the sister of Nancy and Alonzo – Mary Lamb. I believe without proof that when Mary Lamb Miller died in 1836 that the Lamb and Miller families got to thinking about making this a cemetery for the entire Canal Village of South Hadley. I further believe that Mary Lamb Miller was buried here originally and that her father Ezekiel and her grandfather Daniel were buried here too before there was an official cemetery here.
stop 8 – Civil War soldiers and the Gaylord family
These three soldiers fought in the Civil War for the North. They survived the war and returned to the area.
Robert Dillane – death 1900
Nathan Snow – death 1900
Frank Otto – death 1903
The Gaylord family is behind these soldiers. They are a very important family to the history of South Hadley. The Gaylord family started the first library in town (on Main Street) and the second (in the Center).
stop 9 – Elwyn Carley
Elwyn Carley (FINDAGRAVE) died in 1863 in New Orleans from an illness that required hospital care. He was a soldier in the Civil War for the North. His sister Elmira died 10 days earlier and thus they are on the same stone. He is one of 21 soldiers on the South Hadley Civil War statue on the commons. Some of the men have gravestones around town. Carley is on the register for this cemetery as actually being buried here.
Notice behind him is one member of the Chapin family – Phebe (FINDAGRAVE). There are three very old stones in a row here. They are Chapin family members. When you started the tour you passed by a Robinson line of Stones.
One of the Chapins had a maiden name of Robinson. The Cooley Chapin Cemetery was found on High Street at one time. Most likely these 3 Chapin stones and the 3 Robinson stones were in that Cooley Chapin Cemetery along with the large Cooley stone that you will see at stop 12.
stop 9A – Bowdoin stone
The Bowdoin stone started at the Old South Hadley Cemetery. It was moved in 1902 during the move of that old cemetery. The vast majority of the stones were moved to Evergreen Cemetery. Either to the back of that cemetery or to the family section of that cemetery. It was always rumored that a few stones were moved elsewhere. Families could have the burials from the Old South Hadley Cemetery moved to anywhere in the country. This Bowdoin stone is on the Professor Soule list of stones that were at the Old South Hadley Cemetery. (Soule’s list is available at the South Hadley History Room at the South Hadley Library.) Thus it is the only 1902 transfer that is known to have come from the Old South Hadley Cemetery to the Falls Cemetery.
stop 10 – Joseph Carew family
Joseph Carew (FINDAGRAVE) ran a paper mill near the Holyoke Dam. It lasted for 100 years. The nice stone for the Mary Lamb family is nearby. She started this cemetery.
stop 11 – Jonathan Price
Jonathan Price was lost at sea in 1807. (FINDAGRAVE) Some of his relatives moved to South Hadley in the latter part of the 1800s and placed this stone for him. The son of William Price lived 100 feet away from here since 1845. William Price had a son William Price that died in 1912. This stone was put here in 1912 to honor them both. This Price family is the one that I pointed out a house on Spring Street.
stop 12 – Ariel Cooley family
The Cooley Chapin Cemetery was found on High Street at one time.
Ariel Cooley (FINDAGRAVE) was charged with improving the South Hadley Canal. He installed an eight lock system.
In 1902 their family cemetery was moved into this cemetery.
stop 13 – Gates
The year 1727 on the gate indicates the year of the first death of a white person within what would become South Hadley.
stop 14 – Neighborhood of the Cemetery
All of the pre-1800 homes are gone from the Falls section of South Hadley while about 20 such homes are still in the Center area. The brick facade homes at 138 and at 140 South Main Street (LOCATION) are from 1853. It is a good representation of the mid-1800s houses of the Falls. The home at 33 Spring Street might be from the 1840s.