Subterranean Celebrity: ALD and Lydia C.
The Eastern Cemetery in Portland, Maine holds the memories of around 7,000 persons. Some of them are known; some are not. As we uncover stories of their lives, we share them through our e-newsletter. Sometimes the tidbits are not of life, but only of the artifact that remains. These are our subterranean celebrities.
ALD side of the stone, photo courtesy of J. Alexander
Lydia C. side of the stone, photo courtesy of J. Alexander
A few years ago, our conservation crew discovered a small marker poking through the ground in a newer section of the cemetery. The stone is similar to a type that was carved long before that section was in use.
On one side of the stone, the initials "ALD" were carved at the top, so they believed it was a footstone.
On the other side of the stone, they found lettering that could be read by rotating it 90 degrees. This side appears to be a homemade headstone, the bottom of which is now missing. The first line is, "Here lyes ye b[ody]," the second line says, "of Mrs. Lydia C.," and third line begins with a "D." Could this be "Died?" "December?" or even Lydia’s last name? Above those 3 lines is an hourglass, a symbol for the passage of time. The hourglass is often found on stones carved in the 1700s.
We think that at some point, Lydia C.’s broken headstone was flipped, rotated, hand-etched, and repurposed as the footstone for someone with the initials ALD.
Recycled markers are uncommon, but we do have a few at Eastern Cemetery. This one is special for its age, the crudeness of the lettering, and the mysteries of who Lydia C. and ALD really were!
Thank you to our cemetery historian Ron Romano for the write-up.
This information was first published in the March 2026 issue of Spirits Alive eNews. It will be updated here as more information is available, but my contain information that is not quite right or needs to be corrected. Text may have been edited to make sense for this page as opposed to the eNews issue it had been a part of.
Last update: September 2026