Last updated: October 14, 2021
Place
Stonington Cemetery
Photograph by Channing Harris, Michael Shoriak, Scott Goodwin, courtesy of Connecticut SHPO
Quick Facts
Location:
North Main Street and Route 1, Stonington, Connecticut
Significance:
Art, Landscape Architecture, Social History
Designation:
Listed in the National Register – Reference number 100002321
MANAGED BY:
Stonington Cemetery, a 19-acre burial ground, alternatively referred to as Evergreen Cemetery, and originally known as the Phelps Burying Ground, is located at the corner of U.S. Route 1 and North Main Street in Stonington, Connecticut.
Stonington Cemetery’s physical landscape reflects changing burial practices and funerary customs across its more than two hundred and fifty-year history. The cemetery represents changing local approaches to managing and administrating burials, design of those burial spaces, and memorialization. The cemetery uniquely represents a historical arc of American burial practices from the mideighteenth century to the twentieth century, and modes of administrating interments, within a single property.
The history of the establishment of the cemetery began during the late eighteenth century. On May 7, 1787, William Chesebrough, descendant of the original founder of Stonington, conveyed a farm, including an already established family burying ground, to Charles Phelps, a prominent local doctor. The burying ground became known as the "Phelps Buryng Ground." At the time the burying ground was only one acre. In 1849, the Stonington Cemetery Association was chartered by those who had friends and relatives buried in the Phelps burying ground (though no Phelps family members were part of the association). By 1850, the burial ground was at capacity, containing more than 500 graves in its single acre. Following an 1865 purchase of property to the north of the public cemetery, the burial space grew to encompass more than five acres.
Stonington Cemetery, therefore, was one of the earliest examples of modern cemetery organization within eastern Connecticut. The incorporated-cemetery model was a distinct shift in the ways burial spaces were managed prior to the turn of the century. Incorporated cemeteries reflected political and economic structures of the nineteenth century that contrasted with approaches to the management of the seventeenth and eighteenth-century burial grounds. While families and congregations typically managed earlier burial spaces, incorporated cemeteries functioned as regulator and administrator of burial space and burial practice in the nineteenth century. They also represented a commercialization of death; in incorporated cemeteries, families or individuals purchased lots (at varying prices based on the desirability of location) for future generations.
The enlarged grounds of the 1849-1865 cemetery quickly were filled with architecturally sophisticated and elaborately ornamented family monuments and associated headstones, necessitating another expansion towards the east following purchase of sixteen acres in 1888. This expansion took place during a period of changing taste in cemetery design. Importantly, however, that design included a greater number of smaller burial plots, suggestive of a move away from multi-generational family burial, and towards smaller family burial tracts. That changing burial practice likely was tied to changing social customs, including the declining importance of family lineages and the rise of the nuclear family unit during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By 1920, the cemetery's design was solidified, except for one relatively minor addition to the grounds northern edge during the 1980s.
Stonington’s development from a colonial family burial ground to New London County’s first incorporated cemetery represents historically significant changes in local ways of managing death, consistent with historical developments occurring both regionally and nationally during the same period. The site is a rare example of an incorporated town cemetery designed around an existing family burial ground. Within Stonington Cemetery, the burial practices associated with both organizational paradigms are apparent within each landscape: Phelps Burial Ground's scattered internment indicate a lack of formal planning, while the post-1849 and post-1888 grounds reflect a structured, geometric plan. Similarly, organizational structures employed in each burial space reflect burial customs as they relate to periods in social history: the Phelps Burial Ground's earliest internments suggest a community-centric burial landscape, where family members were often interred at a distance from one-another; the 1849-1854 cemetery grounds are structured around large family plots, where multiple generations were buried together, reflecting mid-century values about family lineage; and the post-1888 grounds include burial rows, and larger areas for single graves, reflecting the rise of the nuclear family and the individual interment in burial custom.
Stonington Cemetery’s physical landscape reflects changing burial practices and funerary customs across its more than two hundred and fifty-year history. The cemetery represents changing local approaches to managing and administrating burials, design of those burial spaces, and memorialization. The cemetery uniquely represents a historical arc of American burial practices from the mideighteenth century to the twentieth century, and modes of administrating interments, within a single property.
The history of the establishment of the cemetery began during the late eighteenth century. On May 7, 1787, William Chesebrough, descendant of the original founder of Stonington, conveyed a farm, including an already established family burying ground, to Charles Phelps, a prominent local doctor. The burying ground became known as the "Phelps Buryng Ground." At the time the burying ground was only one acre. In 1849, the Stonington Cemetery Association was chartered by those who had friends and relatives buried in the Phelps burying ground (though no Phelps family members were part of the association). By 1850, the burial ground was at capacity, containing more than 500 graves in its single acre. Following an 1865 purchase of property to the north of the public cemetery, the burial space grew to encompass more than five acres.
Stonington Cemetery, therefore, was one of the earliest examples of modern cemetery organization within eastern Connecticut. The incorporated-cemetery model was a distinct shift in the ways burial spaces were managed prior to the turn of the century. Incorporated cemeteries reflected political and economic structures of the nineteenth century that contrasted with approaches to the management of the seventeenth and eighteenth-century burial grounds. While families and congregations typically managed earlier burial spaces, incorporated cemeteries functioned as regulator and administrator of burial space and burial practice in the nineteenth century. They also represented a commercialization of death; in incorporated cemeteries, families or individuals purchased lots (at varying prices based on the desirability of location) for future generations.
The enlarged grounds of the 1849-1865 cemetery quickly were filled with architecturally sophisticated and elaborately ornamented family monuments and associated headstones, necessitating another expansion towards the east following purchase of sixteen acres in 1888. This expansion took place during a period of changing taste in cemetery design. Importantly, however, that design included a greater number of smaller burial plots, suggestive of a move away from multi-generational family burial, and towards smaller family burial tracts. That changing burial practice likely was tied to changing social customs, including the declining importance of family lineages and the rise of the nuclear family unit during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By 1920, the cemetery's design was solidified, except for one relatively minor addition to the grounds northern edge during the 1980s.
Stonington’s development from a colonial family burial ground to New London County’s first incorporated cemetery represents historically significant changes in local ways of managing death, consistent with historical developments occurring both regionally and nationally during the same period. The site is a rare example of an incorporated town cemetery designed around an existing family burial ground. Within Stonington Cemetery, the burial practices associated with both organizational paradigms are apparent within each landscape: Phelps Burial Ground's scattered internment indicate a lack of formal planning, while the post-1849 and post-1888 grounds reflect a structured, geometric plan. Similarly, organizational structures employed in each burial space reflect burial customs as they relate to periods in social history: the Phelps Burial Ground's earliest internments suggest a community-centric burial landscape, where family members were often interred at a distance from one-another; the 1849-1854 cemetery grounds are structured around large family plots, where multiple generations were buried together, reflecting mid-century values about family lineage; and the post-1888 grounds include burial rows, and larger areas for single graves, reflecting the rise of the nuclear family and the individual interment in burial custom.