By Jeff Slovin, Contributing Writer
Northborough – If you have driven down Brigham Street in Northborough, you may have noticed an overgrown lot set between the houses, not far from where it intersects South Street. Unless you looked carefully, you likely did not notice several gravestones tucked into one corner of what is actually the first cemetery in Northborough, the Brigham Street Old Burial Ground.
The land comprising current-day Northborough was first settled around 1656 as part of the Marlborough Plantation, which was comprised of the current towns of Northborough, Westborough, Southborough, Hudson and Marlborough. In 1717, the western portion of the plantation, including what is now Northborough, had been annexed into the new town of Westborough. In 1728, the “northern” families were granted three acres of land for the purpose of burials. The site was active until 1749, when a burial ground was established on Howard Street, behind the newly built meetinghouse, where the First Parish Unitarian Universalist church stands today.
In the spring of 2010, Northborough resident and professional genealogist Beth Finch McCarthy was jogging by the site when a few gravestones poking up through the grass
caught her eye. She stopped to investigate and saw four gravestones dated from the 1700s, as well as several rows of additional burial stones. Her curiosity piqued, McCarthy volunteered her research skills to provide documentation to support the historical value of the burial ground. The site has been identified as a potential candidate for inclusion on the national Registry of Historic Places.
The four identifiable, standing gravestones belong to a single family group – Joseph Wheeler, one of the original proprietors of Northborough, his wife Elizabeth Holloway Wheeler, their fourth child, Aaron Wheeler, and Adam Holloway, Elizabeth’s father. Joseph and Aaron died within a month of each other in 1747 and Elizabeth was one of the last known burials at the site in 1848. There is one other mystery stone standing near these graves, with a barely discernible inscription that may read “age 3 in 1727” that is suspected to be William Holloway Jr., the grandson of Adam Holloway and the first documented burial at the site.
McCarthy has compiled a list of approximately 40 documented and possible burials of Northborough’s earliest settlers. Documents from the Northborough Historical Commission, Westborough Vital Records, and the diary of the first minister of Westborough, who officiated over the burials at the site, have been key to her research. Various estimates put the total number of graves from 60 to as many as 100, so there still much work to do.
Early Puritan burial grounds were not revered or visited by loved ones; burials were completed quickly so families could get back to work, and the site fell victim to neglect over the years. In the fall of 2011, the Northborough Historical Commission hired a stone conservator to clean and reset the existing gravestones and the Northborough Department of Public Works removed trash and debris that had accumulated over the years.
Earlier this year, funding was approved for a new sign that designates the site as a historical burial ground, with installation planned for spring 2015. There is also a vote slated for the 2015 Annual Town Meeting to obtain a grant from Northborough’s Community Preservation Act fund to survey the site with ground penetrating radar to accurately identify the number of burials, as well as locate fallen headstones that may be buried under nearly three centuries worth of accumulated compost.