The following is a transcription of the prologue to the 1991 survey of the Weed Cemetery done by Howland Atwood. Virtually all of the information from the survey has been incorporated into the data in the Hartland Historical Society’s website. A copy of the original is available in the Society’s library.
The survey has seven pages of transcriptions and notes. It is supplemented by three pages of names, dates, and ages labeled, “Weed Cemetery – Town Highway #22, Hartland, Vt. (1989 Survey).
THE WEED CEMETERY
Byron P. Ruggles compiled a record from the gravestones in the Weed Graveyard on August 3, 1907. He reported the condition of the cemetery as “now a complete hedgerow of trees, brush, briars and weeds.” The town officers fro many years have taken an interest in the proper maintenance of its cemeteries and new flags are still placed in the metal flagholders on each soldier’s grave every Memorial Day.
The oldest gravestone is probably that of Moses Currier, who died March 20, 1791, ages 77 years. There are dated gravestones in every decade up through the nineteenth century to Dec. 31, 1893, the date of Augustine W. Rodgers, a civil war soldier. There was a gap of 77 years before burials were resumed.
George Crandall was buried there in 1970 and George Spear in 1978. Two boys, born the same year (1908), the youngest in their families, who were lifelong friends and grew up on adjoining farms in the Weed neighborhood. George Crandall wasn’t born in the neighborhood Crandall farm, but came there to live when he was about six years old. His mother, Myrta Crandall exchanged her farm (the Blodgett place on County road) for the farm of Frank Burke on the Weed road in the spring of 1914. George Crandall and George Spear were very successful in life. Both retired in the same neighborhood. George Spear on the farm settled on by his Gates ancestors and George Crandall on the Ahira Flower farm that adjoined the farm wher he spent most of his boyhood. His retirement home farm may have adjoined the Weed farm. George Spear’s wife Celia was buried in the Weed cemetery in 1986.
Later generations of the Weed family were buried in the Hartland Village cemetery (see pages 17 and 66A of the record of that cemetery). The Weed family farm was probably sold out of the family in the early 1900s. The descendants removed to Massachusetts. Many descendants of original families in Vermont towns have moved out of state for better opportunities for over 150 years and still will.
Weed cemetery was a part of the old Weed farm. Evaline (Darling) Morgan, who was a Weed descendant, wrote a very interesting article about a walk she took on June 20, 1943 from her family home on Hartland Hill — the next place beyond Lillian Marcotte’s. She described her walk “across lots” and down through the Mose Weed hollow at one time. The mill pond or what remained of it was aftwards used for a “sheep dip”. The brook wound down through the hills to join Lull brook at Fieldsville.
From this point, about 3/4 of the way down page one of the survey, are entries about the people buried in this cemetery and the markers left on their graves.
Transcribed by Brad Hadley, November 2011.