Hampton may use, restore historic cemetery

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By Jamie Norton

The town of Hampton is considering an idea that would allow its residents to be buried in their own hometown and at the same time restore some centuries-old dilapidated headstones at no cost to taxpayers.

The Hampton Flats Cemetery, also known as the Burdick Cemetery, is one of five graveyards in Hampton, and it’s the only one that isn’t at or near capacity. Like the others, it houses grave sites dating back to the 1800s, but it has lain dormant for more than 30 years.

As time has taken its toll, officials are looking for ways to fix the many broken or worn-out headstones, a project that would cost thousands of dollars. And one idea they’re tossing around is opening up the old cemetery and selling new burial plots.

“Within some of those cemeteries, we have headstones that are broken off or snapped off in disrepair that need to be repaired,” town supervisor Dave O’Brien said. “I think we should be able to support the cemeteries and make sure that we pay the respects due to our ancestors who are buried there whose history includes Revolutionary War heroes, Civil War heroes, as well as military men from every single war in the past 200 some-odd years.”

No one has been buried in a Hampton cemetery since 1984, O’Brien said, in large part because there hasn’t been room. So Hampton residents are typically laid to rest in places like Whitehall, Granville, Poultney, Vt., and Fair Haven, Vt.

“There’s been a request by people from Hampton to be buried in Hampton,” O’Brien said. “They’ve lived there all their life, they’d like to be buried there, so (the town is) trying to consider that.”

The town has owned Hampton Flats by default since it was abandoned years ago. So the cost of any maintenance, short of donations of materials and time, would have to come either out of its budget or through a fundraising effort.

Re-opening the cemetery and selling new plots would offset the cost of repairing the stones and revitalizing the property without asking for money from taxpayers. But O’Brien said that, before they take that leap, some due diligence is involved, particularly in a centuries-old cemetery like this.

“There’s always the potential that there could have been some burials there (for) which the head stones were never done,” he said. “In any cemetery that’s older, you could potentially find areas where there were (unmarked) burials in there.”

The unused areas of Hampton Flats have been scoured by several experts, O’Brien said. They’ve checked the unmarked land for “depressions,” the result of the earth slightly caving in over wooden caskets that have deteriorated over time. Nothing has been discovered.

“We haven’t found any substantial depressions so we feel that we’re pretty safe,” O’Brien said. “But we’d say there is still a possibility.”

He added that, if the town were to begin selling plots in the cemetery, any deed would come with a guarantee that the selected space would be thoroughly inspected. That’s done with physical probes, GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar), and more.

“We’re finally coming to a conclusion on it in saying that it’s a shame to waste that space when we could use that for the benefit of the residents,” O’Brien said. He also said that there is no desire or plan to use the land for building.

The town of Hampton will hold a public forum on the matter in its next meeting on Dec. 16.