This stone marks a burial spot at perhaps the first burial ground in Manchester. In 2013 a sign was erected at the site and several organizations worked on clearing brush, brambles, bushes and branches from the area. A dry-laid stone wall surrounds three sides of the cemetery and granite fieldstones mark approximately 100 plots. One side (eastern) is demarcated by Wolftrap Brook.
Editor: The following is from the History of Manchester, Mass. 1645-1895 by D F Lamson.
The earliest burying ground of which any trace now remains is that on the road from the "Cove" to the Magnolia R. R. Station. No mention of this is found in the records. Within the memory of persons now living, several stones remained, among them one of white marble bearing the name of Abigail Gilbert. But these have been broken down and have disappeared many years ago. There are a few small rough stones, without name or date, rising a few inches above the turf, the only memorials that mark the resting-places of the unknown dead.
Nothing could be more simple, rude, primitive. But it is "God's Acre." Within this little plot, far away from the turmoil of life, were laid the mortal remains of some of the founders and first inhabitants of the town. Probably John Kettle was buried here, and the Hoopers, Allens, Kitfields, Stones, and others, whose descendants are now scattered from Maine to Montana. The town has within a few years taken measures to protect the spot from further desecration, but nothing can repair the ravages of the past.
