Alden and Standish Family Graves just down the street!

I live on an old colonial road here in eastern Massachusetts.  Sometimes I look out my window at the cars driving through this now-suburban neighborhood and try to imagine what it must have been like here over 300 years ago when this area was first settled by the European colonists.

Some days I like to walk about a half-mile up the road to the old cemetery that had its first interment in 1751.  I enjoy looking at the old tombstones and wondering about the people buried there.  Many of the slate markers are chipped away, leaving little evidence of their inscriptions.  Other monuments are so worn or covered with lichen that they are indecipherable.

Although the town mows the lawn and keeps the area clean, the cemetery is considered abandoned.  If a stone falls or breaks or goes missing, nothing is done to fix or replace it.  So, this week I began a project that I have been contemplating for a long while.  I started taking photographs of the old headstones.  It is my goal to eventually put them up on a website, along with links to related source material, so they will be widely available.

Today, though, I just wanted to share a few of the pictures and some of the information I was able to find about these individuals:

Elijah Alden (1800-1879) was the 4th great-grandson of John Alden (1598-1687) and his wife Priscilla Mullins (1602-1650) who came over on the Mayflower.

Elijah's wife, Hannah Bassett (1809-1880), was also the 4th great-granddaughter of John and Priscilla (Mullins) Alden.  In addition, Hannah was the 4th great-granddaughter of Capt. Miles Standish, another Mayflower voyager.

Harriet Bassett Alden (1845-1857) was Elijah's and Hannah's 12-year-old daughter.