Thank You for an Unusual, Yet Productive Season

It's time for us to close the gates on the Eastern Cemetery for the season. It's been a wild year! It started with us canceling our last (March) lecture and ended with an online-only version of Walk Among the Shadows.

Thanks to you, our volunteers, and supporters, we were able to do a lot of good work onsite and remain alive in the hearts and minds of those who could not come out and join us this year. Due to the work and sacrifice of our Gate Angels, the gates were open almost every day during the season (a job we took on due to a strained city budget). Volunteers also made sure flags were placed on veteran plots in time for Memorial Day.

Conservation

Though we were unable to offer conservation experience to the public this year, our volunteer conservation team kept up the good work. After over 300 hours of work, 7 volunteers worked on 126 stones! This involved cleaning and simple or complex resets. We even welcomed a prospective Eagle Scout who helped us clean more than 50 veteran markers as part of his project.

Tours

We concluded our limited tour season with a special event: our annual Walk Among the Shadows went on YouTube, and for a short period of time, anyone could watch it free. Highlighting the 100-year anniversary of women's suffrage in the U.S., actors took part in a beautifully directed and filmed video that was seen by almost 1,000 people all over the world. If you'd like to read more about the participants and sponsors, the 2020 program is still available.

Gardening

Work continued on light gardening and lots of care on the back slope. It has been the goal of Spirits Alive to alleviate the erosion that has taken a toll on several sections of the cemetery in the southeast corner. Plantings and soil remediation has resulted in what looks like "amber waves of grain" in that area—check out our Flickr photos of the bluestem work for some before and after shots.

Whether you give with your blood, sweat, and tears, financially, or with your views, comments, and likes on our virtual spaces, we thank you. Please have a happy holiday season. We really hope to see you in person soon.

Winter Lecture Series 2021

Spirits Alive has planned a 4-event series this year and expects it will happen on Zoom. Keep checking our Winter Lecture Series page, our social media sites, or wait for the next eNews for more information as it becomes available.

Subterranean Celebrity: Dr. John Perkins Briggs

Died: July 1837

Many stones in Eastern Cemetery are made of marble and are in various stages of aging (aren't we all?!) The stone for Dr. John Perkins Briggs has been cleaned, but still shows the effects of life exposed to the elements—erosion, grime, and organic growth. In a very common manner for our cemetery, the stone is cut in a rectangular shape with Dr. Briggs' name in relief in an arc at the top, and many lines of inscription below. A memorial to one of his sons, Henry H., is also inscribed at the bottom (and partly hidden by sod):

Dr. John P. Briggs
DIED
July 28, 1837
AE. 46
[illegible]
Sept. 11, 1814
---
Henry H.
Son of Dr. John P. & Dolly F. Briggs
DIED
May 16, 1838; AE. 20 mos.

Author Ron Romano has written a new paper (9th in the series) on Dr. Briggs: Dr. John Perkins Briggs (1791-1837): A Surgeon in the War of 1812 (PDF). He takes a deep-dive into Briggs' life, his family genealogy, and the reason for his early death.

Fun fact: Charlie Cole portrayed Dr. Briggs during our 2012 presentation of Walk Among the Shadows: On Land and at Sea, Portland in the War of 1812. You can suggest a subterranean celebrity! Just send an email—it doesn't take much to make a nice little story. An index of all of our Subterranean Celebrities is available.

Ask Amazon to Donate to Spirits Alive

This is an easy way to give! If you're an Amazon shopper, here's an easy way to support our favorite and the oldest historic Portland, Maine, cemetery:

• Go to smile.amazon.com
• Enter "Spirits Alive" in the box
• Choose the non-profit in Portland, Maine from the list

Voila! A portion of all of your purchases through smile.amazon.com will go to our efforts to support, conserve and promote this historic outdoor museum. Thank you!

Help the Eastern Cemetery

Support the work of Spirits Alive with your giving

You can help Spirits Alive keep the Eastern Cemetery alive for generations to come. Through your support, you can help us, an ALL-VOLUNTEER organization, to continue to:

• Keep the gates open – encouraging the community to explore its open and safe green space
• Offer education about the cemetery and its residents to the public – through tours, lectures, and events
• Encourage and support the city in keeping the site clean and safe for visitors of all ages
• Preserve this incredible outdoor museum and sacred historic landscape