Oldfields cemetery
I tried to find the Oldfields Cemetery in South Berwick ME on Friday. I did find it, but the “adventure” I had in locating it was a cautionary tale on the use of GPS.
My first thought was to simply Google it. Yes, Google knew of its existence (though there was some dispute over whether it was “Oldfields” or “Old Fields”) and graciously offered a map showing its location, plus a route to get there. I got in my truck, map in hand, and set the GPS. It, too, knew of its existence and offered a route to it. So off I went.
The problem arose when I got to Brattle St in South Berwick. Both the GPS and Google Maps treated the long driveway leading to the private home at 21 Brattle St as a piece of the public way. Well, I hope the people who lived there didn’t mind me using their driveway to turn around. Lesson: the GPS can be wrong. I have learned this lesson before, but apparently need a refresher lesson from time to time.
So I wandered around the neighborhood for a while, assuming that it must be nearby (similar to what I did in Beverly last week – which I now think was a mistake). Failing to find it through visual means, I parked and thought about it for a minute. I recalled that findagrave.com offers GPS coordinates for most cemeteries. I looked up the cemetery on my phone, then figured out how to enter the coordinates on my GPS (a first for me). The GPS calculated a route and told me that the cemetery was about a half mile away. As I was already about a half mile from where the GPS first said I would find the cemetery (and in the opposite direction), the net error was about a mile.
The coordinates are (43.21721, -70.80926) if you want to find it for yourself.
The cemetery was actually about a tenth of a mile down a narrow road that ended at a brook where the bridge was out. Vine Road – not Brattle St. I could find it again now, but I probably won’t be going back.
It is actually a pretty spooky old cemetery. Not in great shape – lots of broken headstones and long grass. And I found only one of the 7 headstones of Jett’s ancestors who are reportedly buried there (Eunice Curtis Cutts, a 5th great-grandmother) . But I felt a sense of accomplishment anyway.
Somewhat unexpected was a memorial stone at the entrance paying tribute to William Chadbourne, one of Jett’s 9th great-grandfathers.
Chadbourne memorial
Eunice Cutts headstone
Weird tree