Munger Hill Elementary School fifth-grade students, left-right, Altha Fiordalice, Shannon Sullivan, Erin Olearcek, Jessica Crosby and Emily Gelinas dress in period costume for the Colonial Harvest Days in Westfield in 2012. The students acted as tour guides at the Old Burying Ground located at Mechanic Street in Westfield, which is one of the oldest cemeteries in the United States. The cemetery was established on April 27, 1668. (File photo by Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – The Historical Commission will request tonight that the Community Preservation Committee allocate $30,000 to preserve and restore the Old Burying Ground where many of the city’s first settlers and founding families are interred.
The Historical Commission estimates the total cost of the rehabilitation project for the cemetery, which is located off Mechanic Street, at $35,000. Many of the oldest stones have worn to the extent that all information has been erased by time and weather. The oldest legible stone is dated 1683.
The Historic Commission submitted documentation, prepared by commissioner Cindy Gaylord, that indicates the significance of the Old Burying Grounds, with many of the headstones bearing family names that are recognized by residents today as the names of streets surrounding the downtown area.
The cemetery is the final resting place of soldiers who served in the French and Indian War, as well as the Revolutionary and Civil wars. It holds the remains of colonial pastors, poets and senators.
The Old Burying Ground records indicate that it holds 1,600 graves, but that only 1,100 remain because of weathering, erosion, vandalism and breakage. The Historical Commission’s goal is to “repair, restore and preserve as many (head) stones as possible before they are lost forever.”
The commission also seeks to open the historical site to the public as an education destination, related to the city’s history, for school children. The Old Burying Ground is listed on the National Register of Historic Sites.
The commission, with the help of stonework professionals, has identified the stones with immediate need for both preservation and restoration.
“This project will benefit the residents of Westfield because it is our hope to open this site as a beautiful, serene public park, rich in the city’s history,” Gaylord stated in the application document. “It will also be used for school trips for our elementary classes, as well as secondary students. We hope that it will become a destination for visitors to our city whose ancestors are buried there.”
The Community Preservation Law required that portions of the money generated through a surtax on property, with matching state funding, be used for historic preservation, recreation and housing. The Historic Commission is seeking the CPC’s approval for both the historic preservation and recreational use of the rehabilitated site as a park.
