When the bough breaks: Broad Street Cemetery loses a guardian

By MARY CARTER
Eagle Times Correspondent
CLAREMONT, N.H. — Budding leaves will soon appear on the trees, heralding the promise of spring. However, here in the heart of Claremont, one location will be noticeably bereft. Nestled behind Claremont’s Fiske Free Library, the Broad Street or Old Village Cemetery has been the site of community gatherings for over 232 years.

On January 1, 1896, Claremont resident Charles B. Spofford compiled a list of headstones “from the ancient Cemeteries in the town.” Spofford noted in his introduction that no official burial records were made prior to 1846. When Spofford undertook the task, a number of the stones were already weather-worn.

Spofford indicated that the first mention of the Old Village Cemetery was in August 1792 when two acres near the meeting house were designated as a “burying yard.” In 1801, Mr. John Whitty was appointed to prepare graves. Three years later, the cemetery obtained a hearse and harness made by William Rhodes at a sum total of $91.30.

Sidenotes regarding certain headstones were included in Spofford’s work. A good many honored Revolutionary War soldiers. Abel Bunnel, who died in 1847, was known as Bear Bunnel due to his killing an attacking bear by blinding it with mud and running it through with a fence post.

The first burial in the Old Village Cemetery was for a six-day old child named Chloe Chaffin who died on Jan. 13, 1792. The town’s first school teacher, Anne Cossit, is also buried here. The oldest person buried in all of Claremont by 1896 also rests in the Old Village Cemetery. Elizabeth Parker was 102 years, 8 months and 17 days old when she died in 1826.

Years rolled by, and the Fiske Free Library was built at the foothold of Old Village. The peaceful cemetery became an outdoor sanctuary for many library events. Book readings, guest appearances and teddy bear picnics were held there, along with historic cemetery walks written and arranged through the library, the Claremont Historical Society and the Off Broad Street Players. The most recent production was offered beneath the shade of the cemetery’s maple last September.

Children’s Librarian Martha DeTore-Woods misses that tree.

“That maple was an always changing piece of art outside the backdoor,” DeTore-Woods said. “I made it a daily habit to appreciate the beauty it provided, and to notice the different birds that graced its branches. We’re certainly going to miss the shade it provided to the back of the library in the summer.”

It’s not certain exactly how old that maple was. But age and deterioration played their roles in its demise. The maple was removed with a large section of its trunk left in place. That trunk must remain as it holds fast the 1816 gravestone of Captain Daniel Giddings.

Giddings was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts in May of 1734. His father was one of a group of 16 who organized their own church. Giddings’ father, also named Daniel, served as that church’s ruling elder. One of the earliest Giddings settlers was the fourth great-grandfather of author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Another Giddings climbed an Ipswich 80-foot church steeple, stood upon a ball and waved his hat at an anxious audience.

Claremont’s Captain Daniel Giddings married twice and was the father of 14 girls and three boys. His first wife Sarah is buried alongside him. Her gravestone aptly reads: “The virtuous who in life excel, In death are still remembered well.”

So will that once glorious tree.