When the earliest settlers arrived in our town, they were forging ahead with opportunities
bestowed upon them in the form of land grants and incentives. The Massachusetts Bay Colony granted the land and provided the guidance that would allow the forested area to become civilized. As our ancestors arrived, they found plenty of timber for garrisons and shelters and water to sustain them and their livestock. The game was plentiful and the soil was fertile to promote the growth of fruits and vegetables. Once preserved, the early settlers could store food for the approaching winter while sheltered from the cold winds. They named their new settlement Pennycook Plantation.
As word of success with the early settlement spread, more people continued to arrive. Land grants were still available and with additional people arriving they felt safety in numbers. The labor was shared and the residents of Pennycook Plantation continued to work together to build houses, roads, barns and businesses. Still more people arrived and the residents increased and expanded their operations to include many additional farms, livestock, merchants and industries.
In1733, it incorporated into a town and renamed Rumford. In 1765 our town was reincorporated and renamed Concord. The population was growing and the community was evolving well with many people arriving each and every year. With the extra population, a unique concern arose within the town: with more residents there are more deaths.
The old ways were not working as well as they once did. People that resided on a farm would simply bury their family members on the farm each time someone passed away. Some people maintained strong relationships in the cities to the south and sent the deceased back to those cities for burials in established cemeteries that were found in areas such as Boston, Lowell and Haverhill. There were other people that simply buried their loved ones in their own backyards within the city and crudely marked the graves with stones or a large rock.
As the years continued to pass, there were new concerns from the city government. The health department felt the burials should be recorded and managed like they were in the larger cities down south. Some deaths were not even confirmed by a medical doctor with the corpse simply being buried on the farm. One particular merchant in the Concord business district wanted to be buried in his own backyard — the same location as the present day Wonalancet Club building on Pleasant Street. He was buried in the backyard by his family and rested only temporarily until the house was sold. His body was once again exhumed and moved across the street near an apple tree.
The City of Concord decided the time had arrived to establish an official city cemetery where the people living in the Concord community could be buried. A vote was taken in the late 1720s and a cemetery committee was formed and instructed to find a proper piece of land for a cemetery.
The committee searched and decided to purchase the land that was located across the street from the Old North Church. It was common to locate the cemeteries near churches for the convenience of funerals and burials. Without further discussion the land was purchased and named the Old North Cemetery in 1730.
As one of the oldest cemeteries in New Hampshire, the Old North Cemetery has experienced some unusual history. Some of the first burials in the cemetery include our first settlers. Located near the front of the cemetery there are many slate stones with fascinating epitaphs engraved.
President Franklin Pierce is buried in the Old North Cemetery along with his family. There are two New Hampshire governors and multiple mayors from Concord. We have the noted abolitionist Nathaniel Peabody Rogers and the formerly enslaved Nancy. Death is certainly an eternal equalizer rendering all that are buried in this hallowed soil to be the same.
Our beloved Old North Cemetery survived many periods of concerning history too. Over in Hopkinton there were documented grave robberies. The grave robbers would return under cover of darkness and take the recently buried corpses to remove items of value. Some took the recently deceased and donated the bodies to medical schools. A donated body earned some of them money and others paid their tuition to the medical schools with illicit corpses.
With fear of grave robbers there are some graves at the Old North Cemetery that are said to
remain empty to this very day. Perhaps this is true, I have some particular graves that have
always remained in question. The Old North Cemetery being one of the oldest in the state brings attention to other matters too.
As a child growing up in Concord, there was constant discussion about the possibility of ghosts walking the hallowed grounds. As children, we would dare others to walk through the Old North Cemetery late at night, especially around Halloween. In 1937, the topic of the haunted cemetery received much attention. Night after night the neighbors living near the Old North Cemetery reported hearing a woman screaming late into the night. The Concord Police Department was notified and dispatched late one evening to investigate. The officers reported they too heard noises that could not be explained deep in the cemetery late that night.
The chief decided to send two additional officers to the Old North Cemetery the very next evening to investigate further. As the midnight hour arrived and unexplained noises were heard the officers flooded the cemetery with light. By this time there was an audience along the front iron fence witnessing the event in great detail. The Concord Police Chief reported to the local newspapers that it was only an owl that was screeching, but there were people there that same night that did not agree.
There was another unusual event at the Old North Cemetery in the mid 1960s. One of the local residents was out late walking his dog through the cemetery when he observed some strange lights in the sky. He decided to return the next evening about the same time to see if the lights were still visible high above the cemetery. When he witnessed the event a second time he decided to tell a close friend and they brought cameras to see if they might take a picture.
The two friends invited a few more friends and the nightly gatherings continued to grow. As the weeks passed this observation from the Old North Cemetery grew time and again and the Concord Police were summoned to manage the crowds. At last count it was reported the number of people in the Old North Cemetery late at night staring skyward numbered in the hundreds. Though the initial thought was related to a possible haunting the crowd quickly changed their minds and concluded it most certainly was an Unidentified Flying Object hovering high above the Old North Cemetery.
There have certainly been some peculiar happenings at the Old North Cemetery. There are many people buried with reputations and histories that are quite fascinating. Perhaps you might venture a visit yourself to the Old North Cemetery one night to find your very own experience, if you dare.