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Jeff leads a group through the Eastern Cemetery, photo by Portland Old Port

Tours Are Alive in Eastern Cemetery

4pm daily until October
$10 adults, $5 seniors (62 and older), $0 children (0-12 years)

This is one of Yankee Magazine's top five cemetery tours in New England! Visit the cemetery's unique field of underground tombs, the oldest grave marker from 1717, the final resting place of the famed captains of the 1813 battle between the Boxer and the Enterprise, and the interesting carvings of Portland's first stone-cutter, Bartlett Adams. Tours include early gravestone art, important local historic figures, Portland's historic events, and the landscape of this National Historic Landmark, including segregated sections for Black people, Catholics, Quakers, and strangers. We look forward to escorting you through this incredible outdoor museum.

And another shout-out to our stellar tour coordinator, Jeff Lyons! He’s a pro at giving tours, and coordinates our entire program. He’s also been populating our socials with lots of fun cemetery videos and general information, so check out our Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Reserve your spot in advance if you like: Buy tickets on Eventbrite or bring  cash to the gate.

Kinsman marker in a braced conservation phase in Eastern Cemetery

Conservation Is Alive in Eastern Cemetery

Saturdays through October

8:30am to Noon

Spirits Alive again welcomed conservator extraordinaire Joe Ferrannini of Grave Stone Matters to Eastern Cemetery (June 23-25) to work and teach about large monument work. Working around tall grass and uncooperative summer weather, the team made strides in improving the state of several grave markers. We are so thrilled to be able to take what Joe teaches us back to our willing volunteers who continue this good work. Some of the stone markers the team touched:

• Jonas Coolidge, 1820

• Dr. Aaron Kinsman, 1808

• “My Mother” and “My Father”

• Martha Oxnard, 1824

• James Chadwick, 1808, et al.

• Reverend Reuben Curtis, 1835

Chadwick marker braced while mortar dries

All of our team’s work is on their own time, and they are not paid—unless you call pride in improving the cemetery and working with a fun group of people payment, that is. Enormous thanks and gratefulness go out to these people who spend their precious time and sweat equity improving this place and caring about the memorials that lie within it. They even mowed and weed-wacked the VERY high grass so that the work could be done. Incredible. A special shout-out to our very own Janet Alexander who always puts in 110% to make sure Joe has a comfortable place to stay and lots of good food while he is in town. She coordinates all of us wild volunteers and keeps our conservation team humming.

Salmon Chase grave marker in Eastern Cemetery, by Ron Romano

Subterranean Celebrity: Salmon Chase, Esq.

Died: July 14, 1806

Salmon Chase was born in Massachusetts on July 14, 1761 to Deacon Dudley and Alice Corbett who moved the family to settle Cornish, New Hampshire, in about 1765. After marrying, graduating from Dartmouth College and starting his career as a school teacher in Portsmouth, he made his way to Portland and became a lawyer. Chase grew up with 14 brothers and sisters, and was married twice.

Chase and Mary Stinson (1770-1801) were wed in NH, in 1796. Mary and 3 of their children are buried in Eastern Cemetery with markers near his: Julia (d. 1798, infant), Augustus (d.1799, infant), and George (d. 1819, age 19).

Three years after Mary’s death, Chase and Sarah Tyng Winslow Waldo married in Portland, in 1804. She lived 20 years more than he did and is interred in King’s Chapel Burying Ground in Boston with her first husband, Samuel Waldo, Jr., and 4 of their children.

He died unexpectedly in 1806 at age 45. Chase’s rectangular slate stone was carved by Bartlett Adams who added a bunting hanging from 3 pegs at the top.

SACRED
to the memory
of
SALMON CHASE ESQ.
AEt. 45. Obt. Aug. 10, 1806.
He hoped in God.
Hope wipes the tear from sorrows eye,
And faith points upward to the sky.
O! When will it be morning,
in the grave.

Salmon Chase was cited in Ron Romano’s paper, The Desecration of Judge Potter's Grave and the Lads Who Committed the Crime. He welcomed Barrett Potter into his law practice only 2 months before he passed away.

He also was the uncle and namesake of Salmon Portland Chase (1808-1873), an anti-slavery activist who became a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, the governor of Ohio, and Secretary of the Treasury under Abraham Lincoln.

Suggest your own subterranean celebrity! Just send an email—it doesn't take much (basic vitals, plot location, and photo) to make a nice little story. An index of all of our Subterranean Celebrities is available.

SA Swag

Guess what cemetery fan group has its own shirts, caps, playing cards, and tote bags? Spirits Alive does, that’s who! Visit us on Zazzle to view all of our products. Please know that proceeds go directly back to Spirits Alive to help us fund our work to keep the Eastern Cemetery cared for and to teach others about its wonders.

Support Eastern Cemetery

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

Spirits Alive is a non-profit, all-volunteer organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of Portland, Maine’s historic Eastern Cemetery through a range of activities including promotion and education.

Some of the stones conserved in Eastern Cemetery