Local historian to map Westfield’s Old Burying Ground

March 31, 2021 | Peter Currier
peter@thewestfieldnews group.com

WESTFIELD –  A local historian is undertaking an effort to document every grave in Westfield’s Old Burying Ground, which is the final resting place for a number of prominent residents throughout the city’s history.

Bruce Cortis spoke in detail to the Historical Commission about his work so far during the Commission’s March 15 meeting.

Cortis said that he is working to identify the hundreds of known and missing graves in the Mechanic Street burying ground, with the goal of making a fully searchable database. 

“There are 1,300 or so memorials on Find a Grave. I have the rights over about 1,000 of them,” said Cortis.

Historical Commission Chair Cindy Gaylord said that there are approximately 500 missing gravestones out of the original 1,600 stones in the burying ground.

To gather more information for the project, Cortis said he has been looking through death records from the First Congregational Church and city hall. He is also cross referencing the genealogies of about 15 of the most prominent historical families in Westfield, including the Sacketts and Phelps families.

“I’m trying to get references of birth, marriage and death to cross reference with each other,” said Cortis. 

To further his research, Cortis said he was trying to look at the city’s 1939 inventory list of the Old Burying Ground. Fellow local historian Bob Brown had tipped Cortis off to a document that listed every grave that was standing at that time. The list may include graves that were standing and accounted for then but have since been lost.

Cortis said some of the missing graves became missing due to past confusion when there were multiple people with the same first and last names. He said he knows of some members of prominent families whose graves were never documented.

“There are a whole bunch of Deweys and Nobles who are not documented,” said Cortis, “I am sure there are family cemeteries in Westfield that have never been documented, so some of this we will never be able to reconcile.”

Gaylord said later that there are children who died during childbirth who were never documented, but were likely buried alongside their mothers, who also died in childbirth. She said she hopes Cortis’ research will help others in the future who are looking to find their ancestors graves when they may have otherwise been lost to time.

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