COLLECTION 001 · SGC-WC-001
Meriden, Connecticut
Historical burial references, inscription transcriptions, and surviving sources for reconstructing the cemetery’s records.
The cemetery’s founding and opening have not yet been verified in an original record. The 1934 Hale survey is a later record, not the opening date.
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Published 1906
A portrait published in Meriden’s 1906 history restores a face to a name in the cemetery research. Carter died in 1893; this is the publication date of the portrait, not the year it was taken.
Published 1859; date of likeness not stated
George William Perkins (1804-1856), a Meriden minister, in the engraved frontispiece to the 1859 edition of his sermons. His memoir records his burial in the cemetery of West Meriden.
A. H. Ritchie, engraved portrait of George W. Perkins, in Sermons (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 1859), frontispiece. Library of Congress / Internet Archive.
Public domain in the United States; The scanned title page dates the New York, Anson D. F. Randolph edition to 1859; copyright page dates entry to 1858. A faithful scan of this nineteenth-century published engraving is suitable for U.S. public-domain reuse.
Original source · Reuse termsEXECUTIVE HISTORY
West Cemetery on Hanover Street preserves part of Meriden’s family and community history. The present recovery collection brings together references from early twentieth-century biographies, selected inscription transcriptions and leads to surviving records. The cemetery’s original establishment and opening date have not yet been verified in a founding document.
The sources can recover details that a name index misses. Charles A. Roberts’s biography explicitly names West Cemetery as his burial place. The Griswold account places Charles beside his mother, Eliza Williams Griswold—a family proximity clue that could help future plot research, though it supplies no lot number. Read Roberts’s reference · Read the Griswold reference.
The 1934 Hale inscription survey is a key surviving source. Comparing its complete pages with present stones, burial documents and family records is the next step toward rebuilding a dependable register. The currently included material is a recovery foundation, with uncertainty preserved wherever the evidence is incomplete.
THE ILLUSTRATED ARCHIVE
PORTRAIT PUBLISHED · 1906
Bela Carter’s portrait appears between the pages of his biography. The adjoining text records his death in 1893 and burial in West Cemetery. A portrait brings a person into view; the written reference supplies the cemetery connection.
Gillespie and Curtis, A Century of Meriden (1906), biography section p.431; Internet Archive. Public domain.Read the source
HISTORICAL PAGE · 1902
The Griswold family account says Charles was buried beside his mother, Eliza. A sentence like this can become a useful clue when internal plot records are missing. It establishes a reported relationship in space, without supplying a surveyed location.
Commemorative Biographical Record (1902), p.463; Internet Archive. Public domain.Read the sourceWest Cemetery’s history extends beyond the names on monuments. A federal sanitary account for the 1880 reporting period records four acres and seventy-six interments during the reported year. It places the burial ground within municipal public-health reporting and points toward monthly sexton returns. These are aggregate figures, not seventy-six newly identified people or a complete burial register.
A dispute over Orange Street curbing produced the 1910 case Meriden v. West Meriden Cemetery Association, 83 Conn. 204. The opinion describes six and one-half acres divided into 588 lots and explains that the association retained land title while selling burial rights. That historical finding illuminates how a cemetery could be administered and financed. It does not establish present ownership, and the difference from the earlier acreage requires dated boundary evidence rather than an assumed expansion story.
The Hale survey provides another kind of record. The surviving transcription header credits Lynn C. Webber with copying West Cemetery inscriptions on October 5, 1934. The official locator identifies cemetery 211-10, Volume 26, pages 421–483. Selected Osborne and Osborn entries were already in this archive; the new locator helps define the still-missing complete survey without counting the same people twice.
Later civic records document attention to care. Meriden’s proposed 2020–2021 budget lists an ongoing neglected-cemetery grant for West Cemetery. A grant or a care-of-city address does not establish a transfer of title. Land records, association records and maintenance documents answer different questions and should remain distinct.
These sources support a more detailed history of the cemetery as a community institution: a place of burial, an association holding land, a subject of public-health reporting and a landscape needing care. The exact founding and first-opening dates remain unverified. Recovering the complete Hale pages, original sexton returns and association minute or lot books would connect that institutional story with individual lives more securely.
An undated photograph identifies the approximate location of an unmarked grave in West Cemetery, Meriden. The source credits Meriden librarian Janis L. Franco.
Undated modern photograph; no exposure date established · Photograph credited by GREENERPASTURE to Janis L. Franco, Meriden Public Library.A plot map identifies the approximate grave location paired with the source's photograph of an unmarked area in West Cemetery, Meriden.
Undated map scan; original map date not established · Plot map supplied to GREENERPASTURE with credit to Janis L. Franco, Meriden Public Library.The cemetery appears in a citywide account of burial and public health.
1880 reporting period; publication date not verified · US Census BureauA street-curbing dispute separates burial rights from ownership of cemetery land.
June 14, 1910 · Connecticut Supreme Court opinion, reproduced by CaseMineA 1934 transcription preserves names and dates that may now be harder to read.
Original copying October 5, 1934; web transcription undated · Osborne Origins; original Hale Collection at Connecticut State LibraryA maintenance grant shows public support for cemetery care.
City manager letter March 1, 2020; filename February 25, 2020 · City of MeridenA state table supplies a second dated record of cemetery support.
March 4, 2022; table entry February 17, 2021 · Connecticut Office of Policy and Management / General AssemblyCompare Hanover Street, Cook Avenue, and Orange Street with the cemetery's surroundings.
1867 · City of Meriden GIS historical map collectionCompare Hanover Street, Cook Avenue, and Orange Street with the cemetery's surroundings.
1868 · City of Meriden GIS historical map collectionCompare Hanover Street, Cook Avenue, and Orange Street with the cemetery's surroundings.
1891 · City of Meriden GIS historical map collectionCompare Hanover Street, Cook Avenue, and Orange Street with the cemetery's surroundings.
1958 · City of Meriden GIS historical map collectionThe street map anchors West Cemetery in Meriden's street network.
Undated current city-hosted edition · City of Meriden GISOverlaying old and newer streets helps students read urban change.
January 2007; historical layer 1868 · Harrall-Michalowski Associates / City of Meriden48 person-level references and leads. Dates preserve source wording. Section and lot labels are unverified location clues.
