In which I am better prepared

Earlier this week I was feeling tempted to go to Salem to see how insane it was the week before Halloween.  It's nearly two hours from here to there, though, so common sense prevailed in the end.  Instead I looked at my list of burying grounds/historic cemeteries in this general area and decided I could take a little time to visit the Old Hadley Cemetery, a mere quarter of an hour away.

(Maybe someday I'll visit a place in Mass that's not a cemetery.  But they're so pretty in autumn, and I'm not about to pass up the chance to see old graves.)

Old Hadley Cemetery is located on Cemetery Road, across from a cornfield and adjacent to a now-harvested field of something.  That's the road and the cornfield above, along with the blur of a leaf in the process of falling.  I found information about the cemetery, and the coordinates for directions, on Grave Addiction.  Probably three-fourths of the graves are from the late 19th and 20th centuries.  The grass was trimmed short, and though it looked a little dry, it had obviously been looked after recently.  I first stopped near where I thought there might be some old stones, but when they turned out to be 19th century I moved the Bluebird closer to where the old graves really were, which Grave Addiction tells me is the west end of the cemetery.

These oldest graves haven't been moved from anywhere else; the cemetery was established in the 17th century.  Though I'd read that before I visited, I sort of forgot about it for a while, and was therefore surprised when I came across graves from that far back.  The old section had the most trees, and therefore the most leaves on the ground, but not in a hazardous manner.  Near the short iron fence (short enough that I was prepared to get myself over it if the gates had been locked) that ran along Cemetery Road was a strange lump of a hill that turned out to be a mausoleum facing the road; you can see it on the left in the first picture on the page.  The year 1859 was carved on the lintel, but there was no sign of a family name. 

In this old section are members of some of the area's colonial families; a plaque in a rock says that Nathaniel Dickinson, who was born in England, founded Hadley in 1659 and died there in 1676.  Surrounding the rock are plenty of Dickinson graves, like that of Captain William Dickinson's at left, who died at 67 on June 24, 1742.  There are also people whose names have made it into street names in the area, like Lymans and Chileabs. 

As I made my way from the street side further back, the graves generally got older.  The ones nearest the road were late 18th century; towards the middle they were mid-18th.  I saw a 1742 death date and was excited about that until I came across a 1725.  Then there was a 1718, and then a pair of stones raised like tabletops, illegible with age but with plaques in front of them indicating that they were of Rebekah (below) and the Reverend John Russell, who died in 1688 and 1692.  Original 17th century gravestones!  There were also a few replacement markers for graves from the same era, like the one at right, but originals are so much better.  Shortly thereafter my camera's batteries gave up, but I was well satisfied. 

 

the Russells' graves at center

I was struck by the extreme simplicity of the early 18th-century stones when compared with those from the late 18th century.  Captain Dickinson's headstone just has the barest facts, carved in simple capitals with no decoration, while by the time of the Revolution most stones have more information, variation in typography, and symbolic ornaments.  Perhaps the matter-of-factness of the early headstones is a mixture of humility and austerity.

On a final note, I feel like I'm getting better at photographing graves.  It helps to try to get as level with the face of the stone as you can.  I did a lot of squats yesterday.

In which I have not learned from my past unpreparedness

Before I left for Springfield on Thursday morning, where I was to get my fingerprints taken, I thought, "Maybe I should take my camera with me."

"Nah," I then thought, "it's supposed to rain."  So I left, taking the things I thought I might need but leaving my camera in my room.

When I was nearly to the storefront where the fingerprint place was, in a part of Springfield I'd never been before, I saw on my left a small cemetery with oldish stones surrounded by a carpet of fallen leaves.  Right next to it was a much larger one, with an impressive tower in the center.  On the left on the way there means on the right on the way back, and on the right means it's easy to turn in.  I filed this information away and continued to my appointment.

Once it was finished (those new digital fingerprints are so easy compared to the old way) and I'd gotten a pumpkin pie Coolata at Dunkin Donuts, I made my way back to the cemeteries.  The first I came to was the larger, Hillcrest Park as the signs named it; once inside the gates it was easy to see that this was a cemetery in the new style, with no visible stones.  Maybe there were some in the back, but all I saw was trees, that big tower, and some Canada geese.  It would have been a lovely park, but as a cemetery it was a disappointment.  The disappointment was allayed by the fact that I knew there was a better one just next door.

Had I actually brought my camera along, I likely would have spent much longer at Maplewood cemetery.  At least I had my camera phone.  Even if I'd had the real camera, I don't think the pictures would really do justice to the atmosphere; though it was off a decent sized road it was quiet, and with the thick accumulation of leaves it seemed obvious that no one had been hanging out there recently, making it a little oasis.  Unfortunately those leaves also meant that I nearly tripped over a small marker that had been all but hidden.  Of course I apologized, and was more careful afterward.

Maplewood hadn't come up in my research on old cemeteries in the area ("old" in this case meaning with graves from the colonial or Revolutionary period); the oldest graves I saw were from the mid-19th century, which is not too shabby. 

According to the Internet, Maplewood is now controlled by Hillcrest Park next door.  The cemetery is in fairly good condition overall; the grass wasn't too tall, and there weren't any toppled stones.  It's even possible the leaves had been cleaned up sometime before my visit, because they've been coming down like nobody's business recently, and I'm sure that accumulation could have happened in a few days, if not overnight.  Unfortunately, the leaves covered the place where it was safe to drive, and since I couldn't back out (because I would have been backing out into traffic on a busy street) I had to make an educated guess and hope for the best. 

The two main takeaway lessons from this are:
1. Don't trust weather.com and
2. just take your camera, for Pete's sake.

Autumn in Western Mass

This blog is owed much update and explanation.  I keep thinking I'll get a chance to sit down and write something for it, but it always gets away from me.  Here, at least, is some new content.

It's October, and in western Massachusetts that means it rains.  Last Friday it rained on and off for most of the day, and from the comfort of my room I got a little of it on video to share.  Since that time a lot of the leaves on the tree outside my window have blown down to the ground.  I'm not looking forward to the time when they're all gone--I don't feel prepared to see a naked tree outside my window for the next few months.  I suppose I'd better get ready.