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Amherst Community History Mural – External LINK

Emily Dickinson GRAVE SITE (Internal Link)

African-American Burial Site – INTERNAL 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

See External LINK for an interesting story abou the Afro-Americans of Amherst.

Edward Hitchcock

Lucius Boltwood

Zephaniah Moore

Footstones

Oldest Burials

Mary Dickinson

Wildwood Cemetery is off of Strong Street. It is in the garden style. This is a private cemetery that has its own web site. External LINK – and HISTORY page

ROUTE of TOUR to be used for our tree and physical property TOUR.

FINDAGRAVE description of this cemetery

PLAT MAP of the cemetery

Wildwood Cemetery Arboretum Walking Tour – has map and tree species list

Wildwood Cemetery Arboretum (internal link)

Landscape of the Wildwood Cemetery

EXTERNAL VIDEO on a connection to Olmsted

Interesting Burials – LINK

Watch a video and then a podcast on the cemetery.

North Cemetery was made in 1818. It is located on East Pleasant Street in Amherst. It is still an active cemetery. External LINK to its history.

The land was bought from Martin Baker.

Trees were added in 1846. A well was added in 1873. The cemetery expanded backwards in that year too.

FINDAGRAVE site for the cemetery

CORBIN data for this cemetery LINK

Ezra Ingram

Peter King

Reverend William Hunt

Older Burials

Hawley

South Cemetery is from 1743. It is on Mill Valley Road (route 181). It was called Old Belchertown Cemetery. Also known as the Lone Oak.

Dr Estes Howe

Hillcrest Cemetery is located at the corner of Pine and Bardwell Streets.

FINDAGRAVE

It was formed in 1807.

It is also called Sleeterville Cemetery. Also, Morse, Smith, and Tylerville.

Jenks Cemetery is located at the corner of South Street and South Liberty Street. It lies on private property. 6 members of the Jenks family are buried here.

FINDAGRAVE

Liberty Cemetery was founded in 1801 at the border of Ludlow and Belchertown. It is part of twin cemeteries – one in each town. The Belchertown section of the cemetery is called the Liberty Cemetery and the Ludlow section is called the East Cemetery or the Ould Cemetery. See East Ould Cemetery for more on that cemetery.

Mount Hope Cemetery was established in 1846. It is located in the center of Belchertown. Some of the burials in this cemetery are from other cemeteries in the Quabbin area that were moved here in the 1930s.

Sophronia Packard – LINK

Nathaniel Chickering – LINK

Also when this cemetery was opened up it was viewed as a more beautiful cemetery than others in town and so many families had deceased members moved into this cemetery from others in town.

FINDAGRAVE

Warner Pine Grove Memorial Cemetery is on Turkey Hill Road at the edge of the Belchertown State School property and was their burial grounds. The first burial at this institutional cemetery was on July 21 1925 for a Eva Landry who had died 3 days earlier.

The death of George LaFoe at the state school might have precipitated the new cemetery.

There do exist earlier burials at the institution that are not noted on the plaque at the cemetery.

See the John Lee burial of May of 1925

See the Gertrude Sutton burial of May of 1925

Earlier burials were at the South Cemetery in Belchertown. See the Gertrude Benson burial of March of 1925.

and the Robert Tulloch burial of April 1925

and the John Scott burial

In Memory of Our Friends Who Have Gone to Their Rest Before Us.

His mother died in Worcester and was buried in the older Hillside Cemetery there. Thus it is very unlikely the burial number 132 at this cemetery is the mother of Albert Warner. What really has happened is that Celia her burial number of 132 has been moved to the Warner Pine Grove Memorial Cemetery in Belchertown from the Hillside West Cemetery in Shrewsbury as a symbolic gesture.

Donald Everett Vitkus

Dwight Cemetery is at the end of Cemetery Road near Federal and Amherst Streets in the northwestern section of the town. It is just pass Gulf Street when one is heading west on Route 9 and this is important since there is no longer a street sign.

Perhaps made in 1790. The Arnold family has a large presence in this cemetery. This is also called Union Cemetery.

Walter Corbin data is found at LINK and see FINDAGRAVE

A wooden fence has replaced an older granite fence.