Maple Street Cemetery

Photo by Wayne Howland, used with permission

Maple Street Cemetery

Upon finding out that the Quaker Meeting House Grounds has both unmarked graves and gravestones for Quaker families, I asked my Find-a-Grave expert for that area, Wayne Howland, if I could have a copy of this photograph that shows the Quaker Meeting House from a different angle and season from the one cousin Hulda Jowett shared with me. I didn't expect to see gravestones so close to the road.

As you can see the road directly in front of the doors and granite plaque. If you look in the distance, you can see many more gravestones near the meeting house. Both Hulda and Wayne tell me that the cemetery is called Maple St. Cemetery and encompasses the meeting house.

Ah, the address of the Meeting House is Maple St. and Friend St. Doesn't that make sense now?

Check out the sign for the cemetery which must be at the other end of the cemetery! It says that the Quaker family is buried here and that the gravestones are fragile. 

Quakers in the Family

Quakers, or Friends, seldom have gravestones. I am working on a difficult to prove line of my family who lived in Adams and North Adams, Massachusetts. Before I go on a summer or fall adventure, I want to make sure that I know as much as I can about my family that lived there.

The Adams Historical Society has put a lovely page of information about the Meeting House. The Aylsworth genealogy published in 1887 states that this family and some descendants are buried in the Friend's cemetery at South Adams, MA. [p.132]

In small letters on the Meeting House page, it says Maple St. Cemetery, Adams.  When I look at Find A Grave, I find a list of people buried there but not my ancestors. But, it may mean that there is a list of those buried without markers.

The genealogy simply says that "quite a few of the descendants of Warner and Susanna Aylesworth were buried in the Friend's Cemetery at South Adams, MA. A large natural granite rock affords a mark for the resting place of several of the family."