Cemetery Committee Report 1844
to Town Meeting

Brookline Town Records 1838-1857, pp 116-118. (Brookline Public Library: [Brookline Room] 974.45 B81)

Meeting, March 4, 1844.

The following was read, and accepted:

CEMETERY COM. REPORT.

The committee chosen by the town to superintend the cemetery for the past year would respectfully represent, that on entering upon the duties assigned to them they found by the last report of the former Clerk, that there was a ballance in the treasurer's hands of eighteen dollars & fifty-eight cents. This was obtained, and as it appeared that there was a demand outstanding against the committee of twenty dollars it was resolved to discharge it forthwith by using this sum, and by raising the amount of deficiency by the contribution of the committee. The only revenue which has accrued to the cemetery during the past year, was the sum of twenty-five dollars advanced by one of the committee as the price of a burial lot, not yet selected. This amount was appropriated to repairing and gravelling the avenues, trimming trees, and has constituted the principal operations of the committee during the year.

Thee Treasurer's account stand therefore in thiswise, viz.:

BROOKLINE CEMETERY IN ACCOUNT WITH MOSES JONES, Treasurer.

1843.	Dr.
Jan 10.	pd. David Whitney outstanding bill	20 00
Sept. 8.	Pd. Jas. Gallagher for labour, 25 1/2 days	25 50
1844. Mch. 2.	pd. Caleb Clark for gravel	1 00
			46 50
	Cr.
June 30.	Rec'd of former Treas bal. in his hands	18 58
Augt: 14.	Cash advanced for burial lot	25 00
1844. Mch. 2.	Contributed by members of Com.	2 92
			46 50

Your Committee are sorry to represent, that the unusual drought of last summer has produced serious hovoc among the young trees recently transplanted into the cemetery, and that the returning spring will exhibit the total destruction of from fifty to sixty of them, with the mutiliation of many others. They found also that the stakes marking the boundries of the lots, as laid out on the plan were mostly removed, and before any sales can take place must be replaced in a substantial manner, & by a new measurement. It will be necessary during the ensueing season to clean the avenues from weeds and to prune the trees, if not to replace some of those which have been destroyed. To accomplish these and similar purposes, your Committee recommend that an annual appropriation should be made by the town of a suitable sum, to be placed at the disposal of future committees, whenever the revenues of the cemetery may be found inadequate to its contingences. Such a state of things will very probably occur during the next season as there is no prospect of further sales of lots for the present.

But one grave has been dug in the grounds during the past year, and the privelege was gratuitous, as the subject was poor and died by casualty. Eight bodies have been entombed in the same period, making one interments only in the cemetery; two of which were of bodies brought from other towns as follows, Viz.:

NAMES.	Where died.	When died.	Age.	Disease.	When buried.	Manner of burial.
Elisha W. Williams	Roxbury.	May 5.	15 mon.	Erysipelas.	May 7.	Entombed.
Susan Goddard	Brookline.	May 19.	54 yrs.	Lung fever.	May 21.	Entombed.
Enos Withington	Brookline.	June 28.	74 yrs.	Paralysis.	June 29.	Entombed.
Elijah Corey, Jr.	Brookline.	June 28.	43 yrs.	Congestion of lungs.	" 30.	Entombed.
George Edwards	do.	Aug't 19.	5	Fractured Skull.	Aug't 21.	Entombed.
Mrs. Bullard	Newton.	Sept. 1.		Old age.	Sept. 3.	Entombed.
Robert Noyes	Brookline.	Oct. 22.	60	Drowned.	Oct. 23.	Buried.
Joseph Whitney	do.	Dec. 7.	56	Erysipelas.	Dec. 8.	Entombed.
Thos. Aspinwall	do.	Dec. 18.	74	Consumption.	Dec. 20.	Entombed.

By direction of the Cemetery Committee,
CHAS. WILD, Chairman.
BROOKLINE, March 4, 1844.