Rev. Worcester's Cemetery, Peacham Corner,
Caledonia County, Vermont, USA

Click map to enlarge

   This cemetery is surrounded by a 20" wall of stones gathered from the adjoining fields; it lies 50 yds NW from the end of Worcester Road (TH-52), which dead-ends in a private dooryard.  It is a few hundred yards SE from the homestead of Rev. Leonard Worcester, on land owned by him at the time of the burials - hence the current name.  He deeded it to the town (Bk 9, Pg 291) on Sept 20 1841.  The homestead was later owned by the Hooker family and when transcribed (by order of the state) in 1919, the cemetery was referred to as "Hooker".
   Most stones were well-carved on black schist, some were crudely-carved on rough, gray-granite.

   In 1983 Meg Powden filed a gravestone map and name index of this cemetery with the town clerk.  This project adds as much of the inscriptions as can still be interpreted to her work; gs numbers assigned by Meg have been followed to avoid confusion.  To complicate the task, some stones are today not in the same position or location where Meg placed them on her map.
   In 1919 the state legislature required [PublicAct No.92] that "the selectmen ... shall ... cause to be copied at the expense of the town ... the inscription on all gravestones in their town erected to the memory of any person who died prior to 1870 ..."; these cards were utilized, where necessary, to supplement my sketches and add to inscriptions which can no longer be read.

   Today, this cemetery is well cared for; but, this was obviously not always so, as most stones are weathered almost beyond reading and, at least one footstone is across the cemetery from the matching headstone, several pieces of one headstone were found in the stonewall - and the biggest piece of it was being used to prop up someone else's headstone.

   *  In old style lettering, a "soft" "S" was written like an "f", without the crossbar - I have substituted an "f" - as modern computer fonts fail to provide this character.
   *  a slash "/" indicates the end of a line of engraving on the gravestone.
   *  blue Stone #s indicate gs sketched or photographed - click to view.
   *  DOBs followed by an "a" are calculated from the DOD on the gravestone minus the AGE on the gravestone.
   *  [bracketed italics] indicate the info is from other vital or town records; but was not actually on the stone (this info is added to identify the deceased when the info on the stone is illegible or insufficient).