Amherst Community History Mural – External LINK
West Cemetery in located on Triangle Street. It was opened in 1730. The cemetery is on the National Register of Historic Places. FINDAGRAVE description CORBIN data. In 1833 the cemetery was expanded via land purchase. In 1870 it expanded again. In 1887 it expanded to the south. John Scott was buried in 1737 and is the oldest burial with a stone.
The older burials are on an east to west orientation. Pre-Revolutionary War burials would have had the head of the person pointing to the east and then headstone inscription to the east. Post-Revolutionary War burials would have had the head of the person pointing to the west and then headstone inscription to the west. Footstones would have existed in this cemetery but use ended about 1840. Because potters fields were in the back left for adults and back right for babies, there are two potters fields – one in the east and another in the west. The poor Caucasian people would be in these potter fields without a headstone since the family had no money for neither the burial nor the stones. Also, pre-Civil War, Afro-Americans were not allowed to be buried in the main body of a cemetery and had to be buried in the potter field section. These families could afford both the burials and the stones and hence the burials of Afro-Americans in the potter fields usually included a headstone. Thus it is not correct to state that the West Cemetery has a Afro-American section but I will continue to use that phrase since it is in use in this cemetery with a marker. The gravestones from the period from 1730 to 1776 have been spun around 180 degrees to conform to the orientation of the other gravestones. This would have occurred during the American Cemetery Beautification Movement from the 1880s to the 1910s.
Burnham Gates 1954
Gaylord Gates 1908
African-American Burial Site
See External LINK for an interesting story abou the AfroAmericans of Amherst.
Emily Dickinson
It is the burial place of Emily Dickinson (FINDAGRAVE). Also of that of her father Edward. The first house that Emily lived in was just outside the Gaylord Gate and faced onto East Pleasant Street. See it at this external LINK.
Edward Hitchcock
Lucius Boltwood
Zephaniah Moore
Oldest Burials
