Setting Straight a Piece of History [With Video]

The passage of time has taken its toll on the Ledyard Union Cemetery on Colonel Ledyard Highway, across the road from Friendship Community Church.

Among others, the old cemetery holds the remains of scores of Whipples, Watrouses and Crouches, all prominent families in the town's Rogerene Quaker settlement known as Quakertown.

A walk through the oldest section of the cemetery earlier this summer revealed a number of broken or upended headstones – so many, in fact, that it gave the appearance of vandals at work.

Craig Whipple, president of the Ledyard Union Cemetery Association, couldn't rule out the possibility that some of the stones had been intentionally knocked over through the years. "But there are other things going on with that cemetery," such as the settling beneath the stones that takes place when wooden coffins deteriorate, he said.

Members of the cemetery association have been working this summer to repair and maintain the stones, some of which mark historic graves. The committee is responsible for both the Union Cemetery and the Rogerene Quaker graveyard in the woods along Red Brook Lane. Both are resting places for Ledyard settlers dating back to the early 1700s.

“Generally, all we’re doing is maintenance,” said Whipple, “and a little here and there to get some of the gravestones resurrected.”

In old graves, Whipple explained, there were no concrete vaults, and when wooden coffins deteriorated the soil beneath the stones would begin to settle, allowing the earth supporting the stones to shift. “Those old monuments, some of them just don’t have a good footing,” he said. 

Fixing the stones can be difficult. “You’ve got to get the footing reconstructed and then sometimes you’ve got to go in with a special epoxy” to repair the stones that are broken, he said. 

Trees have also been removed from the Union Cemetery and the grass is cut regularly. Actually, Whipple said tree removal may have caused some of the damage.

In the Quaker cemetery, however, even such general maintenance is challenging because the graveyard is surrounded by forest and is hard to get to. Workers must enter through a trail cut between two houses. 

“There are about 150 people in there, and you walk in there and it takes a while to see the stones,” Whipple said.

 “We’ve been trying to get the town to take it over,” he said. “It hasn’t been active in a long, long time.” However, the procedure is long and the town may be reluctant. “The towns all have their budget issues,” he said.

Both cemeteries have historical significance. Many members of the Rogerene Quaker group who settled in Ledyard are buried there. According to Whipple, the group settled here after religious persecution drove them from New London.

Arriving in the early 1700s, they formed their own small community. “In that little, old area – we used to call it Quakertown when we were kids – is mostly where they settled.” The Rogerene Quakers founded what is now Friendship Community Church, across the road from the cemetery. Some of their families still have descendents in Ledyard, including the church's current pastor, the Rev. Mark Watrous.

Craig Whipple himself has ancestors buried in both the Union Cemetery and the old Quaker graveyard. “I’ve got people (there) about five or six generations back,” he said.

For him, his work with the Union Cemetery Committee is a family duty. “It’s just kind of out of a family obligation,” he said. “It’s just a sense of duty.”

Download the movie