The Dartmouth Cemetery

This guide provides resources related to the history of the Dartmouth Cemetery and the people who have been interred there.

Also known as the Old Dartmouth Cemetery, the Hanover Cemetery 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 1840s, 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. 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. The trustees 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.”