Maine Memory Network

Plan of Universalist Cemetery, West Cumberland, 1935

Contributed by: Prince Memorial Library Date: 1935 Location: Cumberland Media: Ink on paper

Eastern Cemetery, Portland, 1889

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1889 Location: Portland Media: Blueprint

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653 Stevens Avenue, Portland, 1924

Owner in 1924: The George W. Leighton Company Use: Factory - Cemetery Memorials

Mt. Sinai Cemetery Association, Portland, 1969

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1969 Location: Portland Client: Mt. Sinai Cemetery Association Architect: H.I. & E.C. Jordan, surveyors

Receiving Tomb for Gorham Cemetery, Gorham, 1938

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1938 Location: Gorham Client: Gorham Cemetery Association Architect: John Calvin Stevens and John Howard Stevens Architects

Memorializing Civil War Veterans: Portland & Westbrook

Three cemeteries -- all of which were in Westbrook during the Civil War -- contain headstones of Civil War soldiers. The inscriptions and embellishments on the stones offer insight into sentiments of the eras when the soldiers died.

A Day for Remembering

Most societies have had rituals or times set aside to honor ancestors, those who have died and have paved the way for the living. Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, is the day Americans have set aside for such remembrances.

Trenton Cemetery & Keeping Society

View collections, facts, and contact information for this Contributing Partner.

Blue Hill, Maine - Looking for the Lost Cemetery

"lost 4 children under age 10. In the oldest known cemetery in Blue Hill The Old Cemetery of 1794, the oldest headstone is Mrs."

How 20 years in the Navy turned me into an active volunteer
by Joy Asuncion

My service didn't end when I retired from the Navy

Alex Mouzas: Passionate about sharing his Greek-American roots
by Biddeford Cultural & Heritage Center

A personal, in-depth look into the life and contributions of area Greek-Americans

What Remains: Learning about Maine Populations through Burial Customs

Grade Level: 6-8 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies, Visual & Performing Arts
This lesson plan will give students an overview of how burial sites and gravestone material culture can assist historians and archaeologists in discovering information about people and migration over time. Students will learn how new scholarship can help to dispel harmful archaeological myths, look into the roles of religion and ethnicity in early Maine and New England immigrant and colonial settlements, and discover how to track changes in population and social values from the 1600s to early 1900s based on gravestone iconography and epitaphs.

Longfellow Studies: "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport"

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: English Language Arts, Social Studies
Longfellow's poem "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport" opens up the issue of the earliest history of the Jews in America, and the significant roles they played as businessmen and later benefactors to the greater community. The history of the building itself is notable in terms of early American architecture, its having been designed, apparently gratis, by the most noted architect of the day. Furthermore, the poem traces the history of Newport as kind of a microcosm of New England commercial cities before the industrialization boom. For almost any age student the poem could be used to open up interest in local cemeteries, which are almost always a wealth of curiousities and history. Longfellow and his friends enjoyed exploring cemeteries, and today our little local cemeteries can be used to teach little local histories and parts of the big picture as well. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited the Jewish cemetery in Newport, RI on July 9, 1852. His popular poem about the site, published two years later, was certainly a sympathetic portrayal of the place and its people. In addition to Victorian romantic musings about the "Hebrews in their graves," Longfellow includes in this poem references to the historic persecution of the Jews, as well as very specific references to their religious practices. Since the cemetery and the nearby synagogue were restored and protected with an infusion of funding just a couple years after Longfellow's visit, and later a congregation again assembled, his gloomy predictions about the place proved false (never mind the conclusion of the poem, "And the dead nations never rise again!"). Nevertheless, it is a fascinating poem, and an interesting window into the history of the nation's oldest extant synagogue.