Cemetery association celebrates 100th anniversary
WOODSTOCK — Along with the country’s 250th anniversary, the Woodstock Cemetery Association (WCA) this year marks its 100-year anniversary overseeing the care and preservation of the Woodstock Hill Cemetery, and the cemetery’s 337th year.
In recognition, the association will hand out small Betsy Ross-style flags on sticks to the first 50 Memorial Day celebrants to visit the group’s table during the May 25 festivities. The table will be at the cemetery’s stone wall boundary along Hill Cemetery Road, near the First Congregational Church of Woodstock prior to the parade.
The Woodstock Hill Cemetery is both Woodstock’s and Windham County’s oldest burial ground, dating to 1689, of 16 cemeteries in the town, according to the Hale Collection of Connecticut Cemetery Records. The original 4 acres, including the village common—on which town musters were held—was set aside in 1686 by the original settlers, members of the town’s first Congregational Church. In the ensuing years, adjoining land has been added. The cemetery sits adjacent to the First Congregational Church of Woodstock (FCCW) and opposite the village green. More than 1,300 graves and cremation interments are enclosed within the historic stone-walled property.
While care of the cemetery—the burial ground for congregants of the FCCW—was executed faithfully before 1926, that year the association incorporated as the Woodstock Cemetery Association of the First Ecclesiastical Society of Woodstock, Inc. The name later was shortened to the Woodstock Cemetery Association, Inc. It comprises seven elected trustees, in addition to an ex officio member, Rev. Dr. Kevin Downer, the pastor of the FCCW. The cemetery grounds are maintained by long-time sexton Steve Brainard. Among the association’s duties are cemetery maintenance and management, and the prudent administration of funds for future care, expansion, and improvement. Carl Wisnosky is the current WCA president, having succeeded Tom Chase, who served as president for more than 10 years.
Among the persistent challenges facing ancient cemeteries, according to Wisnosky, are erosion and the settling of monuments, invasive shrub and tree species such as Tree of Heaven, changing attitudes toward burial practices, and the care of very old headstones—many damaged by acid rain and overgrown with obscuring lichen. Attending to these tasks safeguards the cemetery’s place as a dynamic link to the town’s long history and residents, ancestors, and as a cultural touchstone and treasury of funerary art. The history and values of a community are inscribed in the names and epitaphs of its cemeteries. Among those buried at Woodstock Hill cemetery are veterans of King Philip’s and Queen Anne’s Wars, the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the Civil War, both World Wars, and other veterans, politicians, publishers, college presidents, and countless families who lived and toiled in Woodstock.
Reflecting on the cemetery’s long history, former association president Tom Chase said, “It’s wonderful that we’ve been going for so long and are still an active cemetery!”