Earlier this year, Mary Bunker Peterson undertook some extensive maintenance in the Bunker Graveyard in Durham, New Hampshire. This past week, Paula Mae Deprey spent some time documenting the location of the individual gravestones in this historic cemetery. Her photographs are available in a photo album maintained by BFA webmaster Doug Detling at http://greencity.phanfare.com/4830622. Paula also prepared two guides for those who may have relatives in the graveyard. These are a sketch of the layout of the graveyard, and a description of what is engraved on the stones, with as much detail as can be read; the documents also contain driving directions to the site. The BFA thanks Paula for sharing this information about the graveyard even though she is not related to those buried there.
Directions and details on the gravestones
Bette Bunker Richards shared the following comment with Paula as part of her preparation for the visit:
A bit of explanation about there being no markers. Markers were rarely put on graves in the 1600 and 1700s. In addition, you needed a stone carver available who could actually carve the stone and many communities did not have any. And then, Quakers did not mark graves and many of the early Bunkers were Quakers. Sometimes, a big rock was put on top the grave and sometimes it might have an initial or two carved in it but for people with no experience carving stone this was difficult and usually not deep enough to last for very long.