Eastern Cemetery is a historic

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

at the intersection of Washington Avenue and Congress Street in the

Munjoy Hill Munjoy Hill is a neighborhood and prominent geographical feature of Portland, Maine. It is located east of downtown and south of East Deering, the neighborhood it is connected to by Tukey's Bridge. The neighborhood historically had a large I ...

neighborhood of

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropo ...

. Established in 1668, it is the city's oldest historic site,"Tours mark 350th anniversary of Eastern Cemetery in Portland"
- ''

Portland Press Herald The ''Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram'' is a morning daily newspaper with a website that serves southern Maine and is focused on the greater metropolitan area around Portland, Maine, in the United States. Founded in 1862, its roots e ...

'', July 15, 2018 and has more than 4,000 marked graves. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1973. The cemetery is owned by the city of Portland. The volunteer nonprofit group Spirits Alive, founded in 2006, is dedicated to the protection and preservation of the cemetery through conservation and education. Spirits Alive offers daily walking tours from June through mid-October.

Description and history

Eastern Cemetery is located on the northeastern part of the Portland's peninsula, at the base of Munjoy Hill, occupying a roughly triangular lot bounded on the north by Congress Street, the east by Mountfort Street, and the south by Federal Street. The sloping lot is only at street level along Congress and part of Mountfort Street, the rest supported by a stone retaining wall. Its street-facing sides are ringed by iron fencing, with the main entrance gates on Congress Street. The landscape is mostly grass, with a few widely-spaced trees. The cemetery has twelve sections (including special areas for Quakers, Catholics and Black people), It is the oldest historic site in Portland. Established as a public burial ground in 1668, 36 years after European settlers first arrived in the area, it now has more than 4,000 marked graves, with an estimated further 3,000 people in unmarked plots. The cemetery, which is about in size, was active until about 1860. There are 95 underground tombs, which were built to house about thirty coffins each. The Dead House, which was constructed in 1871, is located inside the front gate. It houses a tomb, built in 1849, to store bodies over the winter when the ground was too frozen to dig.

Gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...

, from which at least one hanging occurred, and stocks are no longer in place. The retaining walls along Mountfort and Federal Streets date from 1854 and 1868, respectively. The iron and granite fence along Congress Street was erected in 1916, having been moved from Portland High School.

Mary Green's Headstone

The grave marker with the earliest death date belongs to Mistress Mary Green, who died on May 23, 1717, at the age of 54. She was the sister-in-law of Major Samuel Moody, who led the resettlement of Falmouth Neck (now Portland) in 1716. No markers have survived from earlier burials dating back to the 1660s.

The Captains' Graves

The graves of Lt.

William Ward Burrows II Lieutenant William Ward Burrows II (6 October 1785 – 5 September 1813) was an officer in the United States Navy during the First Barbary War and the War of 1812. His father, William Ward Burrows I, was the second Commandant of the Marine Corp ...

, US Navy (1785-1813), and Commander Samuel Blyth, Royal Navy (1783-1813), have a prominent place on high ground in the cemetery. Both men were killed when the ships they commanded met in battle off the Maine coast during the War of 1812. The action ended with the

capture of HMS Boxer The capture of HMS ''Boxer'' in 1813 was a sea fight off the coast of Maine in the War of 1812. The United States Navy brig , commanded by Lieutenant William Burrows, defeated the Royal Navy gun-brig , led by Commander Samuel Blyth. Constructed ...

by the USS Enterprise. The two captains' bodies were taken to Portland, where they were buried side by side following a grand funeral procession through the city. A third grave was placed next to the captains two years later after Lt. Kervin Waters, a young American officer mortally wounded in the battle, succumbed to his injuries.

Notable burials

* James Alden, Jr. (1810–1877), Civil War, Mexican–American War * George Bradbury (1770–1823), US Congressman * Lieutenant

(1785–1813), U.S. War of 1812, commander of the USS ''Enterprise'', killed in the line of duty during the capture of HMS ''Boxer'' on September 5, 1813 * Charles Q. Clapp (1799–1868), architect and merchant *

Charles Codman Charles Codman (1800 – September 11, 1842) was an American painter. A native of Portland, Maine, he was known for his landscape and marine paintings. Career Codman was apprenticed to the ornamental painter John Ritto Penniman, where he be ...

(1800–1842), American landscape and marine painter * Mark Harris (1779–1843), US Congressman * John Holmes (1773–1843), US Congressman * Daniel Ilsley (1740–1813), US Congressman * Captain Lemuel Moody (1767–1846), builder of the

Portland Observatory The Portland Observatory is a historic maritime signal tower at 138 Congress Street in the Munjoy Hill section of Portland, Maine. Built in 1807, it is the only known surviving tower of its type in the United States. Using both a telescope and s ...

* Commodore

Edward Preble Edward Preble (August 15, 1761 – August 25, 1807) was a United States naval officer who served with great distinction during the 1st Barbary War, leading American attacks on the city of Tripoli and forming the officer corps that would la ...

(1761–1807), US Naval officer *

George Preble George Henry Preble (February 25, 1816 – March 1, 1885) was an American naval officer and writer, notable for his history of the flag of the United States and for taking the first photograph of the Fort McHenry flag that inspired the U.S. nati ...

(1816–1885), US Naval officer and writer *

William Widgery William Widgery (July 31, 1822) was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts. Born in Devonshire, England, in the Kingdom of Great Britain, Widgery immigrated to America with his parents, who settled in Philadelphia. He attended the common schoo ...

(1753–1822), US Congressman *

Henry Aiken Worcester Henry Aiken Worcester (Sept. 25, 1802 – May 21, 1841) was a Yale University alumnus, a vegetarian, and a Swedenborgian minister who worked in Maine and Massachusetts. His "''Sermons on the Lord's Prayer''" was published posthumously in 1850 . ...

(1802-1841), minister & vegetarian

Monuments

* Lieutenant Henry Wadsworth (died 1804), uncle of

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include " Paul Revere's Ride", '' The Song of Hiawatha'', and ''Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely tran ...

, who was killed, aged 20, while attempting to blow up a pirate ship off the Barbary Coast. Attempts to return his remains from a grave in

Tripoli Tripoli or Tripolis may refer to: Cities and other geographic units Greece *Tripoli, Greece, the capital of Arcadia, Greece * Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece * Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in ...

have been unsuccessful"Remains of ‘first Navy Seals’ lie in Tripoli"
- ''Washington Post'', May 29, 2011

References

External links

Spirits Alive
Friends of Eastern Cemetery * {{National Register of Historic Places Cemeteries in Portland, Maine 1668 establishments in the Thirteen Colonies Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine Munjoy Hill National Register of Historic Places in Portland, Maine Cemeteries established in the 17th century