26 Feb 2025
Life long resident Todd McGrath walked us through images of the sparsely known parts of Amesbury’s history- our cemeteries. He presented the legacies of 50 local men & women who have served America.
Todd has served on the Amesbury Cemetery Commission.
Over the last five years he has traveled each of these grounds many times, logging names and service records into a digital data base. Existing base maps of St Joseph, Union and Mt Prospect are dated 1940. Todd and the Cemetery Commission believe it is critical to provide visiting family and / or visitors with a plot location and a service record for a loved one.
The City has funded a drone overflight mapping with data entry to digital data set in 2025.
The 5 municipal cemeteries are under the control of the DPW Director with a commission budget of $1,000. The City has two openings on its appointed three member Commission. Ms. Jane Snow is the Chair and long term appointee.
The largest cemetery is Union on Rt 110 ( Haverhill Rd) with 900 veteran plots. Mt Prospect cemetery is on Elm St @ the top of the hill : with 500 veterans interred. Old Corner is also on Elm St at the Cumberland Farms, with 25 +/- veterans : some Revolutionary and Civil War veterans are here.
The small pox cemetery on Kimball Rd at the Elec. easement is un-marked and is a 17 the century parcel.
The Tuxbury family plot is also on Kimball Rd at the highest spot on the hill with 2-3 Veterans.
There are also 4 private cemeteries;
Bartlett on Main St adjacent to the Macy Colby house. There are 116 Veterans interred here.
Salisbury Point on Clarks Rd behind Burger King. There are 66 Veterans here.
ST Joseph on Rt 110 across from Andy Mans Bakery. There are 852 Veterans here from the Civil war through Iraqui Freedom.
Salisbury Plains is found on the Amesbury Salisbury town line on Monroe St. It is owned by the Bartletts.
The goal is to have each of 2,350 Veterans marked with a branch specific PVC flag holder identifying
his/ her service. Currently only St Joseph has a full set of flag holders with 605 new PVC medallions
and 150 +/- to be funded, purchased and installed in place ( $ 1,950.)
We estimate $ 19,500 is required to provide service markers for the 1450 unmarked headstones.
To date, all the funding has been provided by one benefactor.
Jane and Todd’s time is all volunteer.
If you wish to support this worthy and ongoing project please contact Todd directly at tmmcgrath@comcast.net.