Historical Commission’s Monthly Tales of Our Town

September’s story concerns West Newbury’s Almshouse Cemetery, which the Town recognized and preserved in 2021. Consciously or not, almshouse graves, like the residents themselves, were perhaps designed to be forgotten. Historians explained, “The unworthy poor were institutionalized, kept literally at the margins of town society, and symbolically excluded at their death by burial in a pauper’s grave.” Construction excavators and, as in West Newbury, historians have led the way in rediscovering poorhouse graveyards, recognizing that those who died unclaimed should be remembered as part of the community.  Click here for virtual gravestones for those in the Almshouse Cemetery, and click here for a video about the work of the DPW, Eagle Scout candidate Kade Dennis, and the Historical Commission to remember and preserve the burying place.

Click here to read all about it.