Evergreen Cemetery, New Haven

COLLECTION HISTORY

The people behind the place.

Evergreen emerged in 1848 as New Haven residents sought more readily available cemetery lots. Atwater’s 1887 history traces the project to a September 15 meeting, a purchase of thirteen acres from Nathan Peck and a plan for three hundred shares at ten dollars each. The association initially used Washington Cemetery Association and adopted Evergreen on October 19. These organizational steps explain why an establishment date need not be identical to the first burial or consecration. [EVG-001]

The same account identifies Lewis Fisk as the first person interred, in lot 50 on Myrtle Avenue. It prints his birth on April 10, 1807 and death on November 29, 1848. The grounds were consecrated June 29, 1849. Since Fisk’s death precedes that ceremony, the history documents use before formal consecration; it does not justify silently converting his death date into an exact burial date. [EVG-001]

Growth followed the first purchase. Atwater records the acquisition of Peck Woods from Henry E. Peck on April 21, 1856 for $7,000. The precise transaction offers a useful milestone for reading later lot plans. It does not establish the boundaries or acreage of every later addition, which require their own deeds and maps. [EVG-001]

Monuments also connect Evergreen to the city’s working trades. Atwater places Thomas Phillips & Son’s 1877 branch yard at Winthrop and Sylvan avenues opposite the cemetery. His trade survey attributes several Evergreen memorials to the firm, including those for the Odd Fellows, George M. Harmon and Oliver F. Winchester. The passage offers a starting point for studying makers and commissions, while distinguishing those commissions from the firm’s work at other cemeteries. [EVG-002]

Evergreen remains an operating cemetery and crematory. Its own website identifies an eighty-five-acre, nonsectarian nonprofit institution founded in 1848, with trustee governance and a permanent care fund. Researchers can consult the cemetery’s burial-search page and separately published overall and section maps. A map shows spatial organization, while a search result is a name-based record; neither is an acquired original register in this collection. [EVG-006]

The organizational meeting, association name change, first reported interment and consecration show a cemetery taking shape through several acts. Later land purchases changed its physical extent, so an early lot plan cannot be assumed to show the entire later grounds. Monument makers add another layer of local work and commerce to this history. Their commissions connect memorial design to family remembrance and the city’s trades. The current operator’s search and maps are useful tools, but their functions differ: a name-based result is not a complete historical register, and a map cannot by itself establish who occupies a grave. Comparing them with the older printed account makes that distinction teachable. [EVG-001] [EVG-002] [EVG-006]