bach2yoga said:
St Anthony's Pestleton Cemetery
Waterford ME Cemetery
Chew's Cemetery (as it was listed in an obituary of an Elizabeth Vanaman Scudder)
Sound right?
Renee
OK, here's the scoop.
I went to the Waterford Tax accessor's office this morning.
I visited the Waterford Methodist Cemetery. Most of the tombstones date from 1850s and 1860s, with Civil war veterans. Cemetery is NOT where it is placed on the topo. This cemetery is maintained (according to the tax accessor) by Waterford Memorial Park, which is why the cemetery mistakenly got placed where the park itself is. The cemetery is not visible from the road. I will post pictures later. Coming route 30, turn onto Pennington Road, 536 east (later becomes Chews Rd). At the blinking light and stop sign, turn RIGHT onto an unmarked road that says it is closed. That is Old White Horse Pike, some people are now calling it Spring Garden Road. You won't go very far, maybe a tenth of a mile, and there will be a yellow and brick house on your right, and a red and concrete garage on your right. After the garage is a beige dryvit mansion that is almost finished. Before the red house and garage is a little trail that leads back to the Waterford Methodist Cemetery. Markers are mostly to your left, but there is one to your right almost up against the garage.
From there I visited St. Anthony's cemetery (block 278 lot 6)on Pesteltown Road, off of Rt 536. It is off the road a bit on the right, and has stones in there from the late 1700s and early to mid 1800s, with some newer stones and a sign near the road that indicates that plots are still for sale. I continued on to look for Penseltown Cemetery (block 278 lot 18), as the tax accessor's office showed 2 cemeteries on this road. I thought the other would be Beck's but I was disappointed. I could find no other cemetery; the road has new development. At the end of the road is the state forest and I searched a bit to no avail. I stopped at a house that looked as if it had been part of the neighborhood a while, thinking that perhaps someone who had been a part of the neighborhood might know more than someone in one of the newer houses. I picked well, and the gentlemen with whom I spoke was a land surveyor who had a keen interest in cemeteries and is an avid researcher of local history. He told me that it is unlikely that such other cemetery ever really existed; if so, there has been no proof of such. At a curve in the road there is a house which used to be a migrant workers house. Back in the 70's a man wanted to buy it from the township who owned it at that time, perhaps from a tax lien, but the property had a reputation for having been a cemetery, both an Indian cemetery and a 1700s or 1800s cemetery. What is curious to me is how the township would have aquired a tax lien from a property that was believed to have been a cemetery, thereby making it exempt. However, there were no headstones, and no proof anywhere on the property of there ever having been a cemetery. The man hired a group of professionals who researched the property and found nothing. The man bought the property, but the tax maps still reflect it as a cemetery. It was this gentleman's opinion that the real Penseltown Cemetery is actually St. Anthony's as the time frame fits. The St. Anthony's church that is a couple of miles down the road was not built until 1920s, over 120 years after the cemetery was established. Incidentally, the Pensel family was believed to be the family of the area though I saw no mention of the name, and the only other known family related are believed to be in Blue Anchor. I will post these photos as well.
And finally, the cemetery with the no tresspassing signs. Block 306 lot 4. It is a Civil War cemetery. According to the tax accessor's office the ownership is listed as "Cemetery." With an address. No name, no organization listed as owning it. She told me that the cemetery was very old, civil war, and that the township had no ownership records of that property. I asked about the signs and was told that local families probably maintained this grave and posted the signs to discourage vandalism, but that without known ownership, tresspassing cannot really be enforced. Not taking that to be enough verification, I also stopped at the house next to the cemetery. She was an older lady, very kind. The Chew family settled this area. Originally Chew Road was an old stage coach road called "Long Time A-Comin'". The land on either side of the cemetery is owned and farmed. She claims that two families who no longer live in the area are of the original families buried there, and own the land, coming down periodically to maintain it. She also assured me that it is fine to drive the road back to the cemetery, stopping at the barricade and visit the cemetery, which I did. I will post those pictures as well.
There was one other cemetery I wanted to visit nearby, which is supposed to consist of 3 stones in the woods, not visible from the street, but I ran out of time, so that is something for another day.
Hope that helps.
Renee
