Pioneer Cemetery
The cemetery in 2022. The memorial plaque on the boulder replaced an earlier one that was deemed offensive to some
Details
Established1731 (1731)
Location
Gilman Road
Yarmouth, Maine
CountryUnited States
Coordinates43°47′08″N 70°10′25″W / 43.7856°N 70.1735°W / 43.7856; -70.1735
Owned byTown of Yarmouth
Size0.5 acres (0.20 ha)
Find a GravePioneer Cemetery

Pioneer Cemetery, also known as the Pioneers Burial Ground and the Indian Fighters Cemetery, is a historic cemetery in Yarmouth, Maine, United States.[1] Dating to 1731, it was the first public burial place in Old North Yarmouth, which was then part of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.[2] It stands on Gilman Road, around 450 feet (140 m) northeast of the Ledge Cemetery, and almost directly across Gilman Road from the Cutter House, which was completed a year earlier.

Notable burials

  • Ebenezer Eaton (1674–1735), killed by Indians[2][3]
  • Captain Peter Weare (1695–1743)[2]
  • Joseph Weare (1737–1774), Indian fighter, son of Captain Peter, nicknamed the Scout[2]
  • Deacon Jacob Curry Mitchell (1672–1744)[2]
  • Captain James Parker (1689–1732), one of five local men tasked in 1727 with the management of the new town of North Yarmouth. Their affairs included laying out the highways.[2] He was also the town's first inn owner[4]

Inscriptions recorded by Augustus W. Corliss in his late-19th-century publication Old Times in North Yarmouth, Maine, and later reprinted in Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, include:[5]

Here Lyes Buried the Body of
Mr. Andrew Ring
Aged 48 years
Died Nove. ye 17, 1744

and

Here Lyes buried ye body
of Capt. Stephen Larrabee
Departed this life
Oct. 20th. anno dom
1737

Marker

The marker for the burial ground, which was attached to a boulder, was removed to the town's historical society in February 2019, having been in place for ninety years, because some people found the term describing the Abenaki Indians tribe "savage enemies" offensive. Information regarding the intended meaning of the text will be displayed alongside it at the museum.[6]

The plaque reads:

Here rest those who in the third and permanent settlement of the town, defended it against the savage enemies, some at the sacrifice of their lives.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Cemeteries in Yarmouth – Town of Yarmouth official website
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ancient North Yarmouth and Yarmouth, Maine 1636-1936: A History, William Hutchinson Rowe (1937)
  3. ↑ Descendants of Thomas Brewer: Connecticut to Maine, 1682–1996, with Allied Families, Dorothy Brewer Erikson, Jane Fletcher Fiske (1996), p. 370 ISBN 9780880820547
  4. ↑ "Colonial Tavern Keepers"
  5. ↑ Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, Volumes 35-36. American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia. 1925. p. 366.
  6. 1 2 "Yarmouth removes historical marker calling Native Americans 'savage enemies'" – Portland Press Herald, February 13, 2019
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