Family Connections: Woodland Cemetery Project

It was March of 2010 that I was doing some local research into the extended family trees of the deMille lineage. During that process I was able to locate some of the resting places of various ancestors located at the Woodland Cemetery in Stamford, CT. My research eventually led to the USGENWEB project. Searching through the Woodland Cemetery records ( http://www.ctgenweb.org/county/cofairfield/pages/cemetery/cm_stmfrd/woodland1.htm) I came across the following note ...

Stone declaring that the remains of Seth and Deborah Palmer, and Hannah, William S., and Deborah Quintard had been removed from the family burying ground on Palmer's Hill in Greenwich, CT, April 1905.

I found this intriguing and decided that with this information and more it was time to visit the cemetery.

Eventually, I did find the stone mentioned above, but the note about it lacked many details. The monument stone actually read ...

"The remains of Seth and Deborah Palmer, Hannah, William S. and Deborah Quintard, as named on the tombstones in this plot were removed from the family burying ground on Palmer's Hill, Greenwich, Conn., April 1905".

The words "on the tombstones in this plot", stuck in my head and looking about the monument I could only detect one stone ... partially buried by turf.

Going on a hunch, I poked the ground around the monument and sure enough discovered that the other stones did exist, but they were buried and overgrown with turf.

It should be noted that this cemetery is well kept, but as these stones were laid flat, over the years they disappeared. Wanting to do more, I went to the cemetery office to inquire as what was the protocol for unearthing these lost markers. After the office helped me look for the records for that particular plot showing the locations of the individuals interred there, I inquired about how to unearth the stones. Essentially, there was no protocol. If they have been buried that long, it meant that family since has moved on and has forgotten them.

So with shovel, trowel, pail and camera, I set up another day to come back and unearth these lost tributes and recorded them both in pictures and transcriptions.