Hanover Cemetery Documents

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The Hanover, New Hampshire Cemetery Records digital collection consists of several groups of documents: the William Dewey Journal, which records deaths in the vicinity of Hanover from 1769 to 1859; the Chivers Notebook, a cemetery plot plan with diagrams of lots, along with inscriptions on monuments in each lot; hand-drawn maps of the cemetery from 1862, 1911, and 1950; and records of the Hanover Cemetery Association, including meeting minutes (1845-1871) and bylaws (1897-1956). These documents provide an extraordinary wealth of information on mortality and genealogy in the Hanover area in this important historical period.

Also known as the Old Dartmouth Cemetery, it was created when Eleazar Wheelock set aside an acre of level land in the original survey of the village of Hanover in 1771. That land was sequestered by the College Trustees in 1774 “as a burying ground for the use of the College and the inhabitants of this vicinity.”

By the 1840’s, however, the cemetery had become crowded and had fallen into disrepair. In 1845, Rev. John Richards took it upon himself to form the Dartmouth Cemetery Association with Prof. Samuel G. Brown. For the next 100 years the Association became the caretaker of the Dartmouth Cemetery. They maintained the fences, nurtured vegetation and in 1851, built a tomb and hearse house.

By 1943, despite careful financial management, the Association had run out of money and people to adequately take care of the cemetery. They dissolved the Association and signed over the rights to it to the Town of Hanover with the stipulation that the “cemetery shall remain perpetually dedicated to the burial of the dead”.

Learn more about this collection by going to its homepage on the Dartmouth Library Website. There you can read William Dewey's Journal, as well as find a link to a podcast made about the Cemetery!

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