History buffs may say “wait, wait, wait, hold on a sec…the oldest colonial cemetery is actually in St. Augustine, FL.” *pushes up glasses.

While this is true, the oldest burying ground is believed to have been there, it has been lost to the hands of time. Standish Burial Ground is the oldest maintained cemetery in the U.S. It was named in 1842, after the discovery of a boulder with the captain’s name, along with other graves of the time. Myles Standish came over on the Mayflower in 1620 and was buried in 1656. The story goes that after the poem “The Courtship of Miles Standish” was published in 1858 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the interest in the colonial era and the people who were central to it, rose. So, history buffs of the 19th century went on a search for ole Standish and after a few inconclusive finds they dug him up along with his daughter and daughter-in-law. He was then reburied. Then dug up. Then reburied again. All in all, he’s been dug up and buried four times that we know of.

There are people laid to rest here who came over to America on the Mayflower, such as John and Priscilla Alden.