Salem has three historic downtown cemeteries and the one closest to my house is Broad Street, where I go weekly to wander around and learn something new from the gravestones. Its neighbors have been stewards for as long as I’ve lived in Salem, but over the past few years the cemetery has just looked better and better, acquiring a new permanent entrance sign featuring its notable occupants and seasonal flags for those who were veterans. Yesterday, there were more waving flags than ever, as the Friends of the Broad Street Cemetery held an event showcasing the efforts of their vice-president Kenneth Dike-Glover, who has uncovered many previously unknown graves of veterans, particularly those of the Revolutionary War. Ken was aided by a newly-discovered map, a local example of the Veterans Graves Registration project undertaken under the auspices of the WPA in the 1930s, and he told us in exuberant detail how he worked with this map to mark graves that he (we) didn’t even know were there. It was a lot of work, and it is ongoing: one particular mystery involves of the most famous graves in the cemetery, that of Timothy Pickering, Quartermaster- General of the Army during the Revolution and later Secretary of War and State, who just might not be buried under the perfectly preserved and DAR-marked Pickering family stone but rather under a derelict and unmarked one a few feet over! This is just one example of the often-perplexing process of correlating written documents with physicial spaces: it’s not as easy as it sounds. Maps do not always reveal all; sometimes they create more mysteries. But there were definitely revelations in terms of uncovered ground markers and veterans less conspicuous than Pickering whose graves were “hiding” under their family markers–now uncovered, and in plain sight. Ken had marked each grave with a flag and brief biographical and historical references, so after his talk, we all wandered around and got to know these uncovered heroes. I can’t imagine a more perfect Memorial Day activity.
A beautiful day in the Broad Street Cemetery. Ken Dike-Glover and the WPA Map; City of Salem Veterans Agent Kim Emerling, and some of the marked graves, including the two Pickering tombs. The Friends of the Cemetery are soliciting volunteers to help with their inititatives and advocacy, so if you’re interested in early American history (or just cemeteries), check out their facebook page here.
As I was meandering about digesting all of this new information, I was struck by how many privateers are interred in this cemetery. I knew about Jonathan Haraden, the superstar of Salem’s privateers (on whom we have a short chapter in Salem’s Centuries, featuring lots of new research!) but Captains David Smith and Francis Dennis (among others) were new to me and I look forward to reading more about their exploits and service. Captain James Barr (one of about a score of Revolutionary War veterans who lived long enough to be photographed) is also buried in Broad Street, along with approximately 70 of his contemporary brothers-in-arms, but the cemetery also features the recently-rededicated tomb of Brigadier General Frederick Lander and on an adjacent stone, the poignant epitaph of his Civil War comrade, Brevet Colonel Samuel Cook Oliver, who was wounded severely at Antietam: died after many years of suffering, cheerfully and bravely borne.
Salem heroes, long-known and recently-uncovered.
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