Often when I visit an unfamiliar community for work or vacation, I will pause during my stay to visit the local cemetery. These old burial grounds are representative of the collective history of a place, and they provide fascinating insight into era and geographically specific cultural norms, artistic values, ethnic influences, and community history.
A walk through these quiet places can be valuable for research or enjoyable strolling as one observes these surviving relics from an earlier generations. Depending on the pace of change in a town, the memorials are often some of the last tangible links to the past.
In New England, a region with plenty of fascinating graveyards, the central Vermont region has some particularly notable places. In Montpelier the spacious park-like setting of Green Mount Cemetery with its many shade trees and ornamental shrubs, has many memorials to catch one’s gaze. Nearby in Barre, the “granite capital of the world,” is the Hope Cemetery. It has to be one of the most remarkable for there are many finely sculptured memorials, a testimony to the areas skilled stone cutters and artisans.
Here are a few photos I snapped while we vacationed in the area a few years ago.