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Blue Hill, Maine

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Looking for the Lost Cemetery

By Rick Sawyer

How can an entire cemetery disappear? It would seem that it couldn't, but then where is it? The first settlers arrived in the 1760s and in the early town records it shows that the townspeople voted:


To see if they will agree to work one Day for to fense in A Burying Place, and to act on aney other afairs that May Be thought Proper.

March ye 2, 1767 VOTED to clear a Burying Place and fence it one Day.

And again they met three years later:

To see if the inhabitants of the Town will put the burying yard in something better order and act on anything else they shall think proper on the Lord's Day.

March 5, 1770 VOTED to work on the Burying Yard the 25th of April.

There is a Jonah Dodge mentioned in the same early records who was buried "near the Indian Camping Ground" which may have been south of Parker Point near what was referred to as Indian Point or possibly somewhere else nearby in what is today known as Blue Hill Falls.

We do know from the old records that by 1794 at least 45 people had died in Blue Hill, including a few of the early settlers such as Ebenezer Hinckley in 1776, Jonah Dodge and James Candage in 1788, and Ezekiel Osgood in 1790. In 1793 alone Mary Blasdell and Ezekiel Osgood Jr. lost 4 children under age 10.

In the oldest known cemetery in Blue Hill The Old Cemetery of 1794, the oldest headstone is Mrs. Mehitable Witham who died on August 8th 1800. In fact this is the oldest headstone in the town of Blue Hill.

Where are all the other headstones of everyone who died before 1800?

So far no one has been able to locate this old, old cemetery.


A PARTIAL LIST OF THOSE WHO DIED IN BLUE HILL BEFORE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE OLD CEMETERY OF 1794:

  • Hannah Darling d. 12 Dec 1768 daughter of Jonathan and Hannah Darling
  • Mary Dodge d. 21 July 1767
  • Child Osgood son of Ezekiel and Mary Osgood d. 11 Aug 1772
  • Saloma Burnham d. 22 Oct 1768
  • Jerusha Carter daughter of James and Lydia Carter d. 28 Feb 1773
  • John Carter son of James and Lydia Carter d. 1774
  • William son of John and Mary Peters died 5 May 1774
  • Jonathan Clay son of Jonathan and Mary Clay d. 30 Jan 1775
  • Ebenezer Day son of Jonathan and Elizabeth Day d. 16 Dec 1776
  • Ebenezer Hinkley d. Mar 1776
  • Ann Wood daughter of Israel and Phebe Wood d. 19 Dec 1776
  • Hepzibah Hinkley daughter of Ebenezer and Susannah Brown Hinkley d. 22 Dec 1781
  • Obed Johnson son of Obed and Joanna Johnson d. 11 July 1781
  • Lydia Parker daughter of Nathan and Mary Parker d. 29 Dec 1781
  • Nabby Parker daughter of Robert and Ruth Parker d. 19 Dec 1781
  • Robert Parker son of Robert and Ruth Parker d. 19 Dec 1781
  • Polly Candage d.21 Dec 1781
  • Simeon Parker son of Nathan and Mary Parker d.2 Jan 1782
  • Gideon Candage son of James and Hannah Candage d. 26 Oct 1782
  • David Osgood d. 24 Aug 1783
  • Serena Parker d. 12 Oct 1784
  • Benjamin Dodge d. Nov 1784
  • Abigail Gray daughter of Reuben and Sarah Gray d. 19 Feb 1784
  • Hannah Knowles daughter of Samuel and James Knowles d. 4 Apr 1784
  • Anna Burnham daughter of Simeon and Mary Burnham d. 21 Oct 1785
  • Asenath Burnham daughter of Simeon and Mary Burnham d. 1 Nov 1785
  • Christopher Osgood son of Christopher and Esther Osgood d. 26 Jun 1786
  • Joseph Osgood son of Joseph and Hannah Osgood d. 17 Aug 1788
  • James Candage d. 29 Apr 1788
  • Jonah Dodge d. 8 Mar 1788
  • ELizabeth Oakes daughter of Atherton and ELizabeth Oakes d. 4 Sep 1788
  • Ezekiel Osgood d. 25 Jan 1790
  • Molly Burnham d. 8 Oct 1790
  • Lydia Coggins d.1 May 1791
  • Daniel Friend son of Benjamin and Martha Friend d. 17 Nov 1791
  • Ezekiel Osgood d. 10 Oct 1792
  • Andrew Osgood son of Daniel and Sarah Osgood d. 17 Jul 1793
  • Peggy Parker daughter of Joseph and ELizabeth Parker d. 28 Oct 1793
  • Daniel Dodge d. 20 Apr 1793

AND CHILDREN OF Mary and Ezekiel Osgood Jr.

  • Hannah Osgood d. 29 Jul 1793
  • Ruhannah Osgood d. 6 Sep 1793
  • Enoch Osgood d. 14 Aug 1793
  • Phebe Osgood d. 15 Dec 1793





Blue Hill, Maine
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