Radio Script #1026

Little Talks on Common Things
November 17, 1974

Several times on this program we have mentioned the Pine Grove Cemetery, which was opened in 1851, but did not get into full use until the close of the Civil War in 1865. In 1855, further burials were forbidden in the old cemetery on Elm Street that is now Monument Park, but Professor Charles Hamlin of Colby recorded in his diary that bodies were still being removed from the old cemetery as late as 1865.

Recently the Waterville Historical Society has acquired an old account book of the Pine Grove Cemetery committee, covering the years from 1865 to 1896. That work had hardly begun there in 1865 is shown by the fact that total expenses for that year were $53.05, of which the largest item was $40.68 for labor, cedar boards $3.12, and $9.25 for “laying out and making avenues.”

In 1866 the only expense was $7.25 paid to E.R. Drummond for making deeds to cemetery lots. In 1867 the committee spent $24.60, of which $21 was for setting out trees. The next year expenses were only $16.25, of which $12 was spent for making plans of lots, and $3.25 again to Drummond for deeds. In 1869, five dollars was spent for 44 trees. In 1873, for the first time since 1865, expenses totaled more than $50, actually amounting to $80.

It was in 1874 that improvements and regular care began to put cemetery expenses into sizable figures. In that year was employed the first superintendent, on a part time basis. He was responsible from his own salary to pay for all labor, and from the record it is impossible to tell how much of $458 was paid to workmen and how much was for his own services. But this total labor figure was ten times as much as had been paid for labor in any previous year. That first superintendent was O. C. Holway. In 1874 also, $200 was expended for granite.

That improvement steadily went on is shown by certain expense items of 1878: Hauling granite $6.30; grass seed $1.43; work on tomb $19.75; cement $21.60.

In 1880 the record shows an expense entry for digging graves, a total of $57.25. Why that should be an expense to the cemetery committee instead of to individual families is not explained. In 1882 one labor item is labled “Frenchman, name not known, $6.25.” In that year $3.25 was spent repairing the tomb doors. In 1883 a well was dug at an expense of $55. By that time C. F. McFadden had replaced Holway as superintendent.

It would be interesting to know what caused an expense item of $10.50 for police services in 1884, but the old account book is silent as to the reason. In 1885 when Frank Redington became superintendent, it seemed a natural choice to put the city’s best known undertaker in that job. Total approved expenses by that time were exceeding $750, most of which went for labor, although Redington had many loads of gravel hauled for $60, in addition to $20 paid for the gravel itself. He also paid $16 for a new stone threshold to the tomb, and two dollars for cedar posts. The accounts for 1885 also reveal that the old Waterville race track was a cemetery neighbor. Although probably no one now living remembers it, our first fair ground and first half mile track were not out on the western border of the city where is now the Seton Hospital, but at the south end of the town where is now located the Catholic Cemetery, adjoining the Pine Grove Cemetery on the west. There in 1885, was held the annual exhibition of the North Kennebec Agricultural Society, and the horse races that always accompanied that event. The item in the account book is this: “One half cost of fence between cemetery and North Kennebec Agricultural Society, $50.”

For the first time, in 1887, the records show a salary paid to a night watchman. J. M. Moor got $50 for that job for the entire season during which the cemetery was open.

The first instance of liability costs came in 1886, when D. H. Swan collected $14 for injury caused by a falling gate. The accounts for that year reveal just what the committee paid for gravel, for one item reads, “108 loads of gravel $10.80.” That means the price was 10¢ a load.

Meanwhile the cemetery was expanding. In 1886, $15 was paid for plans for new lots.

In 1887 they decided the well dug four years earlier needed protection. The well itself had cost $55. Now they built over it a well house costing $120. It also cost $60 to repair the front gate. Among the expenses for 1888 were six stone posts $9.00, and a pump platform costing $5.25. Five dollars also went for what was called a “death record book.”

In 1889, they set out 51 more trees at 50 cents apiece, and spent $21 for loam. In 1891, the cemetery committee incurred the largest expense for anyone year up to that time, $1,586. It was caused largely by expansion of the grounds, purchase of which amounted to $800, more than half of the year’s total. The next year, 1892, saw development of the new land, by plotting lots, laying out streets, planting trees, and other work. Included in the expenses was $25 for bulbs and $5 for grass seed, and $85 for loam and sod. All costs for the year were $2,546.

From 1893 until the close of this particular account book in 1896, money was spent for such hitherto unrecorded items as painting the fence, setting out plants and shrubs, and many loads of manure.

The very last item in 1896 is not easy to explain. It was $273 for cleaning stones. I have always supposed that lot owners were responsible for any work done on monuments and tombstones. How that work happened to cost the cemetery committee more than ten percent of all 1896 expenses I cannot explain.

In those old cemetery records the first reference to annual care came in 1889, when Edna Springfield paid two dollars for care of her lot. She was quickly followed by J. H. Plaisted, Emma Pray, C. R. McFadden and Thomas Bates. Perpetual care was instituted in that same year of 1889, beginning with Richard Dow. The charge was $100, and soon following Dow’s example was F. B. Philbrick, the Heirs of D. N. Sheldon, Mary Alden, and Dr. F. H. Getchell. By 1895 about twenty lots were
under perpetual care, including those of David Moor and C. E. Mathews.

Total number of lots in Pine Grove Cemetery at the end of 1896 was 497.

It is interesting to note what people paid for cemetery lots as the years went by. Five purchases were recorded in 1865, ranging from $16 to $32. One purchase that year was by the Trustees of Colby College, who paid $26 for a lot near the front of the cemetery, in which were buried four young men who had died while attending the college in the 1830’s and had previously been buried in the old cemetery at the corner of Elm and Park streets. Close to that college lot in Pine Grove Cemetery is the grave of Edward Mathews, victim of Waterville’s first murder in 1847.

By 1870, the average price for a full sized lot was $30, although the Eldon family in that year bought two lots for $24 each.
When Everett Drummond purchased his lot in 1874 he paid $40, although four years later Christian Knauff got one for $25. When Horace Purinton took a large and choice lot in 1881, he paid $50, and M. C. Percival paid the same amount in 1883, as did Luke Brown in 1884.

Not until 1890 did any lot cost as much as $60, the sum paid by both Jane Frye and J. C. Howe, though Moses Foster at the same time got a lot for $55. In 1891 lots hit a top price of $75, when Appleton Webb bought two for $150. But the very next year both F. A. Waldron and George Milliken paid $85 for their lots.

Not until 1894 did any lot bring as much as $100. That was paid by George B. Howard for a choice lot in the new addition. In the same year, however, Charles F. Johnson, who would later be both a U. S. Senator and a federal judge, got his lot for $60.

The year those old records closed, 1896, saw W. M. Lincoln like Howard before him, pay $100 for a lot, but in the same year P. S. Heald got a lot for $85, while Edwin Noyes, H. A. Toward, and John Webber each paid only $60.

By 1880 Pine Grove Cemetery had a modest nest egg of invested funds. They owned A & K RR bonds of $200 clE’l1′”‘n1in<ltion ;md one of $lflO, n. bonds of $100 PAch i:1 Hr RR and 6 shares of stock in the Ticonic Bank, then valued at $600 though having cost $750. The total investment was $2,200.

By 1890 added stock in the Ticonic Bank had brought that item up to $2,600. There were 10 shares of stock in the Lockwood Mills for $1,000, and the old holding of A. & K. and M.C.bonds for $1,600. They also held a mortgage loan due from the A. O. Lombard Co., builders of the caterpillar tread log haulers, for $5,000. Thus in ten years from 1880 to 1890, the cemetery’s invested funds had increased from $2,200 to $10,200.

When the books closed in 1896, the investments were $2,200 loaned to the City of Waterville, Boothbay Harbor bonds of $3,000, $1,000 of bonds of the City of Wichita, Kansas, and $1,200 in the Waterville Savings Bank besides the bonds long owned. Total investments had by that time reached $15,000, and the noble experiment begun in 1851, but not really going before 1865, was now on a sound financial basis.

As the years have elapsed, 78 of them, since 1896, the Pine Grove Cemetery has been repeatedly enlarged until it is now difficult to get any space for further extension. But, under a full time superintendent, with a large, experienced crew of workmen, the grounds are beautifully kept. The old trees have grown to giants and newer trees are gaining size every year. The entire cemetery is itself a beautiful and fitting memorial to Waterville people who contributed much to the community and passed on to the world beyond the grave.

Year: 1974