p.408

When in 1706, after long debate, the third Meeting House was built, far from the old site, upon the east side of the river, a suitable lot of land across the highway near it was given to the town for burials by Captain Thomas Wilder, second of the name. The donor's grave is the oldest in the enclosure, the date of which is known. Inscriptions prior to 1850, beginning with those of the Wilder family.

p.416

The first meeting house in the Second Parish of Lancaster was opened for public use November 28, 1742; but during five or more years previous to this date, the families in that quarter of the town had grown sufficiently numerous to organize neighborhood meetings under the leadership of Josiah Brown, a young clergyman there resident. From this fact, and from the evidence of the memorial to the Dresser children, it may be inferred that the third place of burial in Lancaster was public ground as early as 1736. Throwing doubt upon such inference, however, is the statement of a historian in the Worcester Magazine of 1826, that Gamaliel Beaman's burial in 1745 was the first within the parish. (to be transcribed)

p.420

In May 1798, a committee, elected to procure and lay out new burial grounds, bought of Rev. Nathaniel Thayer and Honorable John Sprague one acre and 24 rods of land lying in rectangular form, sixteen rods in length, on the highway, and eleven and one - half rods in width. According to their report, they "agreed to pay Mr. Thayer fifty dollars on his executing a deed to Mr. Sprague of the Gore of Land between the old and new burying fields, which he agrees to receive in exchange for what the Town will have of him, and each of them giving a deed to the Town, agreeable to the plan." In 1842, this field being crowded with graves, about one half acre was added to it on the west end, by purchase of the widow of Nathaniel Thayer, D.D., and space for two tiers of lots along the whole front was gained by enclosing common land on the highway, removing therefrom the hearse-house and town pound which had for many years been obtrusive features of this locality. The following is a carefully revised transcript of all inscriptions in this populous field bearing date earlier than 1850 (to be transcribed)

p.445

In 1781 Mother Ann Lee and the Shaker Elders came from Watervliet to eastern Massachusetts upon a proselyting tour. During the two years of her sojourn here, she won, in Lancaster, Harvard and Shirley, numerous converts to her peculiar doctrines, who soon organized a community, choosing for their place of residence a fertile valley near the junction of three towns. A field for their dead was selected within the bounds of Lancaster, a few rods from the Shirley line. In it, running north and south, are long rows of graves, each with its little head and foot-stone about eighteen inches in height. These memorials are all of rough slate from a quarry near by, save the few erected since 1860, which are of white marble. A large majority of the inscriptions, especially of the older ones, consist of two letters only. The following list includes all of the dates before 1850 and begins with the western most row. (to be transcribed)

p.446

At a town meeting in April 1800, the fourth article of the warrant was:

"To consider the expediency of appropriating a certain piece of land at the north part of the town, where a number of persons are buried, for the purpose of a burying field."

A committee, to whom the matter was intrusted with full powers to act, reported, in the following May, that they had "Received a quitclaim Deed of Mr. Elijah Wiles of 112 rods of ground, being 16 rods in length bounding on the Road leading by Col. Henry Haskell to Harvard, and 7 rods deep." The deed found in the town's archives, however, is dated Feb. 20, 1805, whereby Elijah Wilds conveys to the town 144 rods of land, measuring 8 rods along the highway and 18 rods in depth. In the public burial place thus established are numerous graves mostly undistinguished by monuments. The epitaphs prior to 1850 are: (to be transcribed)

Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth