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Local Historian to Hold Cemetery Tours in Guilford

With Halloween getting closer, spooky decorations such as skeletons, ghosts, and gravestones are likely to start popping up around town. But why not check out some real gravestones?

This month Guilford genealogist and historian Tracy Tomaselli will give tours of the Alder Brook Cemetery on Boston Street. Visitors will have the chance to learn about 25 of the cemetery’s interesting residents and explore the grounds.

Tomaselli, a member of the Alder Brook Cemetery board, said she came up with the idea for the tour after doing extensive research on the Civil War a few years ago.

“I though it would be interesting to just display different stories about Guilford people,” she said.

Interesting indeed—established in 1818, Alder Brook Cemetery is home to some of the stones originally placed on the Town Green. On the tour, Tomaselli said she will identify a series of interesting residents including a man who had both of his thumbs amputated, a woman who died at the circus, a former slave, a slave owner, and a man who died from the effects of drinking ice water.

“That was a weird one,” she said of the ice water victim. “It was listed in the paper as such, and I thought, ‘OK how is that possible?’ but it sounded like he drank ice water a few years prior to his death and then just never recovered from some sort of illness that he had.”

For the tour, Tomaselli is putting out signs with biographical information and photos, but will also be including a digital element. Each sign will have a QR code for smart phone users to scan if they would like to listen to audio about the person.

“People can read the signs if they want and look at some pictures and/or they can scan the code and just listen to it,” she said. “We are trying to build more of these tours so that residents and visitors can have access to that.”

The tour itself is free of charge, but Tomaselli said she is asking for donations to go toward repairing some of the older stones at the cemetery.

“In walking around the cemetery and learning about the different people that are buried there and finding out interesting stories about them, I thought, ‘Well, let me share some of those and also raise some money for repairing the older stones,’ because a lot of those families—they are so many generations back that nobody is really visiting them or taking care of them and so it becomes the responsibility of the Alder Brook Cemetery Board,” she said.

Currently the cemetery budgets close to $2,000 a year for repairs to damaged stones, but the cemetery doesn’t generate much income. Damage can occur from age, the ground giving way causing the stones to tip, or damage can occur during maintenance of the grounds.

“Once all the cemetery graves are sold, there is no income coming in, so it is just a way to generate a little bit” of funding, she said.

All and all, Tomaselli said she’s glad to be able to share these people’s stories.

“It makes these people more than just a name and a date and a cold stone,” she said. “It brings them life and, whether it is sad or funny, they all have stories.”

Tours will be held at the Alder Brook Cemetery on Boston Street on Saturday, Oct. 29 and Sunday, Oct. 30 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Donations are suggested at $10 per person and $20 per family.