Northfield Cemetery

A short walk away from all the bars, restaurants and high-rise apartments of downtown Stamford is one of the area’s most overlooked places – Northfield Cemetery. Of course, a history major who loves gothic things has a cemetery as one of his favorite places. Scandalous!

With Halloween quickly approaching and the spooky season upon us, I have a story you may or may not believe about the cemetery. One night, a few years back, I was walking home in the early morning hours by the cemetery. I stopped to lean against the stone wall that runs alongside it. Under a tree, I saw what appeared to be a woman lying there, arms crossed. She didn’t move, didn’t see me… just was there.

I thought it was the tree root playing tricks on me or the moonlight. The next day I returned – no tree root, no woman. I’ve returned a few times over the years and she ghosted me.

But that night, well… like I said, the spooky season.

This isn’t a piece on the haunted history of Stamford, but about a place that represents the actual history of our city. In 1787, the Hon. Abraham Davenport gave the land for the cemetery, his northern fields, to the First Congregational Church.¹

John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem about him and the Dark Day of 1780. The sky went black over New England and the Connecticut legislature wanted to adjourn thinking it was Judgment Day. Whittier wrote that Davenport said, “Let God do His work. We will see to ours. Bring in the candles.”² And work continued that day.

The original public burial site was located under Columbus Park, the town center. As Main Street expanded, the remains were moved to North Street.³ The town did their best to move them completely but in some cases that wasn’t possible. In a town that always has an urban renewal project, fragments of Stamford’s earliest settlers still lie under Columbus Park, where people eat lunch every day.

The cemetery is the final resting place for names any Stamford resident will recognize – Hoyt, Scofield, Weed, Lockwood and Selleck. The oldest headstone is 1745 and there are veterans from the wars that shaped American history: 24 Revolutionary War, 2 War of 1812, and Civil War veterans.⁴ Every day we walk or drive down Hoyt Street or Weed Avenue, and these founders rest quietly on North Street.

Writing these articles always teaches me something new. The folk artwork of Phineas Hill, a highly celebrated Connecticut-born stonecutter, is on display in Northfield Cemetery. The headstone of Theodosia Davenport, Abraham’s granddaughter, who died at 21, was created by Hill.⁵ Imagine an 1810 signed and hand-carved stone standing outdoors on North Street for 216 years – between a bank and an office building.

The cemetery was officially listed on the Connecticut State Register of Historic Places in 2018, but it isn’t on the National Register yet.⁶ Cemeteries don’t usually make the National Register. They have to be exceptional in some specific way – the craftsmanship, the age, someone buried there who matters beyond the town.⁷

And a historian to write it all up.

Looking back on that walk home and seeing the woman under the tree, it makes me wonder. Was it the moonlight or…

Well, rest in peace, Theodosia, either way.

Notes

1.“Historic Cemetery Showing Ravages of Time,” Stamford Advocate, reproduced by the Stamford Historical Society, https://www.stamfordhistory.org/adv_cem3.htm.

2.John Greenleaf Whittier, “Abraham Davenport,” in The Tent on the Beach and Other Poems (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867). The Dark Day occurred on May 19, 1780; the words are Whittier’s rendering, written nearly a century after the event.

3.Patrick Young, “Northfield Cemetery Stamford, Connecticut,” The Reconstruction Era, June 5, 2024, https://thereconstructionera.com/northfield-cemetery-stamford-connecticut/.

4.Ibid.; see also Northfield Cemetery, Stamford, CTGenWeb Fairfield County, https://www.ctgenweb.org/county/cofairfield/pages/cemetery/cm_stmfrd/nor....

5.“Preserving City History, One Cemetery at a Time,” Stamford Advocate, August 16, 2026; see also the Stamford Historic Cemetery Preservation Society, https://www.stamfordhcps.org/.

6.Northfield Cemetery, Stamford, State Register of Historic Places survey, Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, October 31, 2018, https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/decd/historic-preservation/01_programs_ser...(1).pdf.

7.National Register of Historic Places, Criteria Consideration D. Cemeteries are generally excluded from listing unless they derive primary significance from graves of persons of transcendent importance, from age, from distinctive design features, or from association with historic events. National Park Service, National Register Bulletin 15.

About the Author

Paul Gerardi was born and raised in Stamford. He holds a degree in history from the College of the Holy Cross, where a Jesuit education emphasized ethical responsibility, critical thought, and the enduring principle of People for Others.

His writing is shaped as much by philosophy and history as by film, music, and popular culture — the modern myths that reveal who we are, what we value, and what happens when ethics quietly slip out of view. He is the author of The Cost of Being Human.

He writes weekly articles at PaulGerardi.co