Wardsboro Road Cemetery

For the last 20 years or so I have spend much of my free time driving old forgotten roads in the mountains of NY , NH , Vermont and Maine. roads that don't show up on most maps. While it never crossed my mind early on, one of the more interesting finds are cemeteries left long forgotten. I actively seek them out now.


Many are small , run down and abandoned with headstones dating back to the 1600’s.amazingly I have come across a few out in the middle of nowhere that are still maintained and cared for. It would be nice to come across some of the people that visit these cemeteries and listen to their family stories.

But most of all there is a sadness about these final resting places. It doesn’t take long to realize that life was especially cruel to the woman and children. The mother’s ages in the low to mid 20’s with the children here just months or a few years. I can’t help but wonder at the pain, struggles and sacrifices the families must have suffered.

Today I came across two cemeteries in the Adirondacks . One I knew about and the other was by total surprise. Padanarum Rd Cemetery and Wardsboro Rd Cemetery. Walking and reading the headstones at Wardsboro was truly heartbreaking. Founded in 1842 most of the stones were of young women and children. The newest headstone I seen was dated 1862.

Sitting there I could not help but wonder what happened to everyone? Did the men take up new wife’s and have more children, did they move on looking for a new life or march off to war never to return ,did they perish with no one left to bury them? Where is the rest of the story? Are there relatives out there with this final resting place lost from them forever? It makes one wonder where one’s own family resting grounds are.

Raised in the projects, immigrating to the streets and enlisting in the Navy at 17 I always had the confidence that I could pretty much stand face up to anything. But over the years after visiting these places would I have the same courage to face the unbearable existence that these people faced day in and day out. Would I had even reached 17.

In a day when many people believe that life owes them something I think of these words from the Declaration of Independence,

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

While these people may never of though of themselves in this manner , they are the faceless heroes and trailblazers I admire and respect for the courage to live by these words long before Thomas Jefferson ever penned them.