Rockingham Cemetery Committee Rockingham Cemetery Committee

The Rockingham Cemetery Committee was convened by the Selectboard to improve the condition of Town's five cemeteries, plan appropriate and sustainable preservation of these revered spaces, provide better access to documentation of our shared history and develop coordinated opportunities for public engagement and volunteerism. Meeting dates, agendas, and meeting minutes are available linked below.

Accomplishments in the last year include:

• Improved public feedback regarding mowing and other general maintenance tasks.
• Spring and fall cleanups in all five town cemeteries.
• Assessment photography of all memorial objects in the town's five cemeteries is underway. Cambridgeport has been completed and will be used as the test case for assessment reporting.
• Collaboration with the Rockingham Free Public Library to build a publicly accessible database that can grow with new content from the Town, professionals, lay historians, and families.
• Collaboration with the Rockingham Historic Preservation Commission for funding and resourcing to address preservation needs in the cemeteries.
• Research and planning with the Selectboard to better define the value, function and appropriate uses of the Perpetual Care fund.

Committee activities for the coming year will be aligned with the following priorities:

Public education and engagement

• An exhibit about the cemetery committee's work and the issues facing our cemeteries and memorial objects will open in late winter 2026 at the Rockingham Free Public Library

Volunteerism

• Training materials and a routine for managing volunteer activity in the cemeteries will be  developed by the RCC and approved by the Selectboard

Improved access to cemetery-related records

• Dated plats of each of the cemeteries' deeded plots will be scanned for online access. These maps will serve as the foundation for future digitization, assessment, preservation, and development efforts.

Financial insight and planning

• In conjunction with the Selectboard and Town Manager, the committee will continue to work toward a more strategic approach to cemetery-related spending that provides conscientious maintenance along with proactive preservation and digitization planning and implementation. 

Rockingham Meeting House 

GIS coordinates: 43°11'17.3"N 72°29'12.3"W 

Located to the north behind the Meeting House in Rockingham Village, is the first permanent burial ground established in the Town of Rockingham. The first burial in the Meeting House lot occurred in 1782 before the Meeting House was erected. The cemetery is known for its early slate and marble stones. Many of the older headstones were crafted by the Moses Wright family of stone carvers who settled on farms to the north of Rockingham Village in the 1790s. This is still an active cemetery with more than 1,200 stones, affording opportunities to observe the various styles of memorial objects used in this region over the decades.  

As a set, the Rockingham Meeting House, cemetery and the surrounding acreage is one of the more important visual social documents of early town life in Vermont. The initial construction on the meeting house began in 1787 and is described in the National Historic Landmark nomination as “a rare New England meetinghouse of the ‘Second Style,’ designed in the Georgian manner with barn-like massing and austere appearance evoking Medieval and Puritan forms, the most intact 18th public building remaining in Vermont.” 

The Town of Rockingham was first settled by primarily Anglo-American colonists after the French and Indian War ended in 1763. Discussion about the construction of a meeting house began in 1771 and culminated in the construction of a building at this site in 1774. That building remained in use until the construction of the Meeting House now on the site, which was approved by the town meeting in 1787. Documentation is unclear about when the building was completed: the first recorded town meeting was held in this building in 1792, at which time it was not complete. In that year, the town approved use of the building by local Christian congregations for services. 

The building was substantially restored in the early 20th century and is now cared for by the Rockingham Meeting House Association. The building has no heat or electricity but is still used today for civic, religious and private gatherings. Guided tours are available. The cemetery is open to the public dawn until dusk.  

Saxtons River Cemetery 

GIS coordinates: 43°08'08.3"N 72°30'31.3"W 

Saxtons River settlement commenced in 1783 on the site of what became Saxtons River village. Initially oriented toward agriculture, it proceeded slowly during the remainder of the eighteenth century. By 1807, settlement in the area had become more rapid and residents began to plan the construction of their own meeting house on the south side of the river. Simeon Aldrich donated a plot of land for the purpose and Roswell Bellows was awarded the contract to build the building which eventually became known as the South Meeting House. The building was erected in 1809-10 and demolished after years of neglect in 1974. 

A burial-ground, now the Saxtons River Cemetery, was established nearby, the ground being leveled by a community work-bee in June 1810. The meeting house is now gone, however a park has been dedicated around the foundations. Nearby stand the original hearse house and a tool museum maintained by the Saxtons River Historical Society. This cemetery includes approximately 1,900 headstones and other memorial markers of various eras. Spaces remain available in the Saxtons River Cemetery.  

Cambridgeport Cemetery 

GIS coordinates: 43°08'45.3"N 72°33'27.3"W  

The Cambridgeport Cemetery located near the intersection of Bull Creek and the Saxtons River has been in use since the 1800’s. Uzziah Wyman was the first person interred in this cemetery. There are approximately 300 graves in the cemetery and burials there continue to this day. This rural cemetery is the final resting place of many veterans and members of notable families from the area.  

Restland Cemetery 

GIS coordinates: 43°07'38.3"N 72°26'55.3"W 

The land for the first public cemetery in the Town of Rockingham was acquired in June, 1845 from Solomon Hapgood. Its location on the so-called Old Terrace was at that time outside the settled area of Bellows Falls village to the southwest along the road to the village of Saxtons River. The following decade, a movement arose to transfer the cemetery to St. Charles Roman Catholic Church and a favorable vote was recorded at the town meeting in March, 1858. However, for unknown reasons, the transfer was made at that time. Two decades later, after another favorable vote at the March, 1877 town meeting, the cemetery - now known by the name "Restland" – was conveyed in August, 1878 to the "trustees of the Catholic Society." It has since become a town maintained cemetery with approximately 400 interments. Plots are no longer available in the Restland Cemetery.  

Oak Hill Cemetery 

GIS coordinates: 43°07'28.3"N 72°27'06.3"W 

Oak Hill Cemetery was founded in 1875, as the second municipally owned cemetery in the town of Rockingham. It is notable for the park-style nature of the grounds, including avenues, public greenspaces, and a distinctive gazebo and chapel. Today, about 2500 burials have taken place in the Oak Hill cemeteries and plots are available for purchase. In 1862 a committee was formed to investigate the matter of another cemetery and its choice of location, that parcel of land on the so-called New Terrace, was reviewed but was not popularly accepted. Ten years later, at the Rockingham town meeting in 1872, a motion was adopted "to authorize the Selectmen to purchase a lot and fence the same, suitable for a Cemetery for the Village of Bellows Falls." There ensued a dispute about the choice of land that was not resolved until a special town meeting held in February, 1875. At that meeting, the Rockingham selectmen were pointedly "instructed and directed to select and purchase within five days from this date [February 8] a suitable and proper place for a cemetery for Bellows Falls." Furthermore, the selectmen were given a choice between two specific tracts of land, and if they failed to act within the allotted time, a specially appointed committee of three citizens was directed instead to make the selection and purchase. The selectmen apparently responded in time: on February 11, warranty deeds were signed  transferring to the Town two parcels on a terrace next to Oak Hill a short distance to the south of, and somewhat higher than, Restland Cemetery. The holding was enlarged in 1883, and the town authorized significant funds for its improvement in 1884. It is believed that the chapel was built following this authorization, as there is no mention in detailed earlier records of its construction. The Oak Hill Cemetery Chapel possesses significance for embodying the distinctive characteristics of a vernacular building type, a combined funeral chapel and cemetery maintenance building. The cemetery chapel occurs only rarely among the historic resources of Vermont, and the Oak Hill chapel constitutes the most modest example showing the influence of the Gothic Revival style. The building represents the latter nineteenth-century development of Oak Hill Cemetery into one of the state's largest and most handsomely landscaped burial grounds, a stature befitting the contemporary emergence of Bellows Falls as an important industrial and commercial center in southeastern Vermont.