The GROVE STREET CEMETERY in New Haven, Connecticut, opened in 1796 and is said to be “the oldest cemetery in the nation designed as the ‘city of the dead’ with named avenues and streets”.
We visited for a half hour on July 31 2024. We could have been there a lot longer, wandering amongst the grave stones and memorials, taking in the peaceful atmosphere, however it was 86°F and humid, so it was a challenge to last even that long.
The New Haven City Burial Ground, as it is also known, was designated a National Historic Landmark for the numerous monuments reflecting the history of funerary art in America.
We marvelled at many of the unique headstones and sculptures dotted around the landscaped site.
Those graves for veterans, which were adorned with American flags, easily caught our eyes, as did some of those with unusual names (such as Frisbie and Spock). Grove Street Cemetery is surrounded by Yale University, and we saw that many of the internments there are for those who had studied at the university.
The cemetery was well looked after and we passed a small maintenance crew who were sensibly resting in the shade, as it was that hot. Other than them, we saw only a handful of visitors but we still felt safe when wandering about.
We stumbled upon the grave of historian William Harry Goetzmann (1930-2010), winner of the Pulitzer and Parkman prizes, and known for his work on the American west. He had an impressive memorial featuring a Native American riding a horse. We noticed others had left coins on top, so we did the respectful thing and left a couple of coins too.
The illustrated memorial for Winfred Rembert (1945-2021) caught our eye - it was adorned with a photograph of him, with the epitaph describing him as an artist. A week or so later, when in a bookstore in Exeter, New Hampshire, we saw a book by Mr. Rembert on sale, in which he chronicled his memories of the Jim Crow South as well as his evocative artwork many from colored pieces of leather.
Cemeteries are known for the dead, but the New Haven Cemetery was full of life: squirrels clambered about and we even spotted a dragonfly resting atop the signpost for Magnolia Ave. We took a detailed closeup pic and it looked like the bug was smiling at us!
As we went to leave the cemetery, we were surprised to see a memorial for six ‘Amistad Captives’ - enslaved people aboard La Amistad - who had arrived in New Haven gravely ill and did not survive to see freedom like their compatriots following an historic Supreme Court case in 1841. The story of the ‘slave ship’ was famously told in the 1997 film directed by Steven Spielberg.
We’ve been in several cemeteries around the United States over the years and they are always well maintained and looked after.
Credit to those who take the time to remember the dead.
📌 GROVE STREET CEMETERY, 227 Grove St.,New Haven, CT 06511
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