The New Hampshire Old Graveyard Association meets three times a year. Please join us to learn about the discovery, maintenance, records preservation and cataloging of graveyards and cemeteries.

The New Hampshire Old Graveyard Association will hold its fall meeting on Saturday, September 8th at Alton’s historic Gilman Library. Registration starts with refreshments at 9:30 a.m. in the downstairs meeting room, with a brief business meeting and program beginning at 10:00 a.m. The public is invited.

Local Historian and Association member Martin Cornelissen, immediate past president of the Alton Historical Society, will explain his ongoing research to find and catalogue the graves of every military veteran buried in the town of Alton. To date he has completed research of those who fought in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and the War of 1812, and is continuing work on succeeding wars, including the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam and others.

Cornelissen will explain how he conducts his research, which many times leads him to discovering long lost burial places in the woods and forests of Alton, often with the help of landowners, neighbors and even living descendants. The program will include a tour of the Alton Historical Society Museum, housed at the library, and a visit to the town’s municipal Riverside Cemetery, which includes the grave of Civil War Colonel James D. Savage and Old Tom, buried nearby, the horse that carried him in battle throughout the war.

The New Hampshire Old Graveyard Association was founded in 1975 and is composed of genealogists, historians, cemetery officials and others interested in preserving historical graveyards. The association has catalogued over 4000 burial grounds in New Hampshire available for viewing online, and offers programs and workshops to assist families and communities on how to care for and restore historical graveyards.

AGS National Conference: June 25-30, 2019, Gardner-Webb Univ., Boiling Springs, NC
For those who have interest in cemeteries that goes past the boundaries of NH, consider joining AGS and attending the annual conference. For more information about AGS, contact Joshua Segal who has attended every AGS conference since 2007.