Furbish Family Cemetery

Another installment in my Forgotten Cemeteries  blog series. I began with Death and Espresso, and since then I've written posts on a couple other little graveyards in Milton Mills, NH and Somersworth, NH that seem to have gone by the wayside. This little resting place is on Route 1 in York, Maine.

The cemetery that attracts attention in York is the Old Burying Yard, because the grave of Mary Nasson, a suspected witch is enclosed there. But the little group of headstones that caught my attention is on a small hill as you enter York, and I noticed that all the stones have the same last name, so I suspected it's a family plot.

'The official name of it is Furbish Family Cemetery. It's just a tiny little plot of land, up on a little hill. Like the others, it's easy to miss if you're not looking for it.

It's a sad little cemetery; I know most people probably think that all cemeteries are sad, but this one only has several stones, and at least three of them are young children.  One named Lilian was three years old, and shares a stone with her father, Henry D. Furbish:

And there are also a couple of infants. One named David was two months old, and one named Emily S. (she appears to have been named after her mother) was just one month old.

Little cemeteries like this remind us how high the infant and child mortality rates were in previous centuries; unfortunately, one family losing three young children was not very rare due. 

Furbish Family Cemetery must have someone who cares for it, because the stones are all clean and upright and in good repair, and the grass is not overgrown. I couldn't find much more information on it, other than lots of listings in nearby towns and counties with the same surname, so it must be another old New England name.

I would love to write a book someday about all these little forgotten cemeteries that dot our country's major roadways.