Stories

Established by the town in 1636 as a “lot” for the burial of residents of the Town of Contentment, as Dedham was called at that time, the Old Village Cemetery is considered to be one of the finest examples in the country of a graveyard dating from the Colonial Period. The first recorded death in the Town was in 1637, though many of the early deaths were either unrecorded or the plots have been plowed over to make room for more graves. The earliest marker is that of Hannah Dyar who died on December 15, 1678.

Video: The Jason Fairbanks Story

Video: The Maritana Shipwreck
“A Boston shipwreck. A ‘cursed’ figurehead. And a monument far from sea” The Boston Globe, 11/20/2019

More Resources:

For those interested in finding where certain individuals are buried, visit findagrave.com and billiongraves.com

View a list of burials in the Old Village Cemetery (pdf)

Epitaphs in Old Burial Place_Dedham, copied and arranged by Rev. Carlos Slafter, A.M. (pdf file download)

Dead Men (and Women) Tell a Tale, a story about the Burgess family of Dedham published on Americanancestors.org

Snatched from the Grave (pdf)
Tales from a Dedham Graveyard (pdf)
Stories from dedhamtales.com, a blog from former Dedham resident and History teacher James L. Parr

“Speaking Up for the Dead: Former legislator is determined to restore forlorn cemetery in Dedham and return it to a state that honors its history” The Boston Globe, 2/18/2010

Donations
We now urgently seek to supplement town funding with private donations so that we can immediately ramp up restoration work to see the Old Village Cemetery reborn as Our Village Cemetery.