Natick's Oldest Burial Grounds: Gravestone Carvers and Their Symbols
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Registration for this event is suggested, but not required.
Patrons who register will receive an event reminder and any updates about the event. Registration also helps us know how many chairs we need. To register please visit the library's online calendar.
If you've driven past the South Natick Burial Ground or North Natick Cemetery without stopping, this talk is a reason to change that. Established in 1731 and 1744, these are the town's two oldest burial grounds and hold gravestones cut by hand by carvers whose work can be identified and traced across eastern Massachusetts. We'll look at who carved Natick's earliest stones and at the symbolism they used — death's heads, cherubs, urns, and willows — which was designed to be read and understood by anyone who passed by. Natick's other cemeteries appear along the way, as a way of tracing how burial grounds evolved into cemeteries over three centuries.
About:
Marian Pierre-Louis is an educator who specializes in house history research, southern New England genealogy and historic cemetery research. Marian has been researching house histories for over 25 years. She has researched hundreds of houses across Massachusetts and New England. She contributed a chapter to The Stories Houses Tell – A Collection of Little Compton [RI] House Histories (2015) and again in a new volume (2022) A Second Collection of Little Compton House Histories. She also wrote the Old House Secrets series in the Medway & Millis Local Town Pages. For two years Marian was a volunteer docent at the Fairbanks House, the oldest timber-frame house in the United States.
Sponsored by the Friends of the Library
Patrons who register will receive an event reminder and any updates about the event. Registration also helps us know how many chairs we need. To register please visit the library's online calendar.
If you've driven past the South Natick Burial Ground or North Natick Cemetery without stopping, this talk is a reason to change that. Established in 1731 and 1744, these are the town's two oldest burial grounds and hold gravestones cut by hand by carvers whose work can be identified and traced across eastern Massachusetts. We'll look at who carved Natick's earliest stones and at the symbolism they used — death's heads, cherubs, urns, and willows — which was designed to be read and understood by anyone who passed by. Natick's other cemeteries appear along the way, as a way of tracing how burial grounds evolved into cemeteries over three centuries.
About:
Marian Pierre-Louis is an educator who specializes in house history research, southern New England genealogy and historic cemetery research. Marian has been researching house histories for over 25 years. She has researched hundreds of houses across Massachusetts and New England. She contributed a chapter to The Stories Houses Tell – A Collection of Little Compton [RI] House Histories (2015) and again in a new volume (2022) A Second Collection of Little Compton House Histories. She also wrote the Old House Secrets series in the Medway & Millis Local Town Pages. For two years Marian was a volunteer docent at the Fairbanks House, the oldest timber-frame house in the United States.
Sponsored by the Friends of the Library
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Where is it happening?
14 E Central St, Natick, MA, United States, Massachusetts 01760
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.
Host or PublisherMorse Institute Library Natick
