History, Stones and Maples

Rock Ridge Cemetery Project

                 While tinkering with this cemetery project I had quite a lot of fun. Selecting a cemetery to be my subject took some time. I wanted to visit and report on a cemetery that had unique history. My first choice was a small, rather old cemetery in Vermont near located near some property my family owns. It stood out because the man who originally settled the land is buried there. Then I recalled another cemetery a bit further north in Vermont that would be very cool because Calvin Coolidge, the thirtieth president of the United Stated, is buried. That fact is interesting because he is not buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Finally, while I was explaining the project to my dad, he mentioned a cemetery right in Sharon that has a lot of local Civil War history, including the final resting place of Debra Sampson Gannet. Thus I decided on the cemetery I would visit. J

              The Rock Ridge Cemetery is located at 107 East St. Sharon Ma, 02048. I drove to the cemetery on a warm clear day getting there via Beach St in Sharon and had to take a detour around because one end of East St is closed for repairs. When I pulled into the cemetery I decided to look at the old section first and left my car there. The cemetery is medium to small in size surrounded on two sides by wooded wetlands that I later found out were called the Devil’s Brook wetlands. The remaining two sides ran along East St and Mountain St. The entire boarder of the Rock Ridge is surrounded by stone walls, the older style, made by taking rocks found the field and stacking them up to make a fence. I was unable to figure out for sure who runs the cemetery however; I believe that it is run by the township. The group in charge of placement seems to be the Sharon American Revolution Bicentennial Committee.

            The Landscape of the cemetery is amazing and gorgeous! Scattered throughout the area are maple trees that, with the season, all have bright red and yellow leaves. Many thousands of leaves have already fallen creating twelve inch high “leaf banks” which I observe a caretaker blowing to the side. Despite the humungous amounts of fallen leaves the trees stilled appeared full. The grass was well kept and the area around each marker was well manicured.

           Unfortunately, I have to stop blogging for now; however, I will try diligently to post more in a few hours. I have so much more to share plus I have lots of pictures to display. More to come! J