York Town News
Protecting the past...
Using technology and detective work to document York's many cemeteries
By Jennifer L. Saunders
For York Geographical Information Systems Manager Brett Horr, a four-year project archiving the locations of York's hundreds of cemeteries has become a labor of love, of sorts, as he and intern Andy LeConte became detectives to find lost cemeteries throughout town. Pictured are cemeteries that are located out of plain sight but are now catalogued as part of the project.
Photos by Jennifer L. Saunders
York GIS Manager Brett Horr and intern Andy LeConte have used a mix of modern technology and old deeds and texts to assist in their search for York's approximately 210 cemeteries. Above, a Town Hall employee stands in a cemetery located in the woods of Cape Neddick.
Courtesy photo
They are the gravesites of York's fathers, mothers, daughters and sons of days gone by - now being mapped and catalogued through the wonders of modern technology like global positioning systems and aerial photography, mixed with good old-fashioned historical research and walks through the fields and woods.
What began several years ago as a project by York's Geographical Information Systems Manager Brett Horr to locate and document veterans' graves throughout the town has expanded to include all of the town's burial grounds - large or small.
Of the towns approximately 210 cemeteries, Town Planner Steve Burns confirmed that Horr and recent Planning Department intern Andy LeConte have positively located about 160 of the sites.
"Brett Horr is in the process of completing this work for the remaining 50 or so," Burns explained. "The locations are primarily being collected with GPS, but some of the more difficult-to-reach sites are just being located using the aerial photography at this time.
Horr explained that in addition to the use of that technology, York's copy of the voluminous book "Maine Cemetery Inscriptions" from the Maine Old Cemetery Association has provided a wealth of information, as have the many volunteers who have searched the woods or brought in anecdotal information about the various sites over the course of his research.
In his Town Hall office last week, Horr used a copy of an aerial photograph of a section of York to illustrate how the process works.
Using descriptions of cemeteries in the MOCA text - which sometimes cite landmarks that no longer exist or roads that have been discontinued - he and LeConte worked to find signs of cemeteries on the landscape itself as captured in the aerial photographs.
"What we always looked for were right angles," he said, pointing out a faint intersection of lines in a rural area of town.
Using GPS, cemetery search volunteers, Horr or LeConte, who worked on the project for one month this spring, would set a point and walk out into the woods, fields or just off a well-beaten path - such as Beech Ridge Road - to find what might be a large cemetery with standing stones not readily visible in an overgrown area or a small cluster of unmarked fieldstones dating back through the centuries.
"It's kind of detective work," Horr said, explaining that finding the cemeteries has included interviews with residents who remember locations from the past as well as traces through deeds and searches by landmarks noted in ancient texts.
And, with the changes time has brought to York, many cemeteries are not easy to find, as they exist in the middle of such areas as conservation land parcels where the farms associated with those plots disappeared years ago.
Horr said the history found in York's burial grounds is compelling, to say the least.
A small cemetery off Kimball Farm Lane, for example, is steps from the recent Central Maine Power right-of-way construction work, but blends into the landscape unless you know it is there. The spot is the final resting places of Kimballs from years gone by, as well as, in more recent years, a veteran whose grave is decorated with tokens of remembrance from loved the ones left behind in his passing.
Just off Beach Ridge Road, but tucked almost entirely out of view on a wildflower-strewn hillside, is another cemetery where a son - well over a century ago - erected a memorial to his father, who died at the age of 99.
Then, in a secluded spot in the woods of Cape Neddick, Horr located, among others, the grave of a Gold Star Mother and a memorial to her son, who died in World War II and was buried in the Philippines.
Horr said in addition to keeping these people and places from York's past recorded for future generations, the project is important because it provides protection for these burying places from disruption as parcels of land are developed in the future.
Burns and Town Manager Rob Yandow agreed, noting the ongoing cataloguing of these cemeteries will serve as a resource for the Planning Department.
As Burns put it in his most recent Planning Department report, "I have watched Brett put a great deal of time into this effort. The directions for locating some of these ancient cemeteries are obscure at best, but his detective work and perseverance are paying off. … There may be a cemetery or two he hasn't located precisely, but the vast majority will be positively located and the locations will be permanently archived so it will be hard to lose track of them in the future."
For more on the resources and maps archived through the town's Geographical Information Systems, visit www.yorkmaine.org and follow the links to the Planning Department.
