Our weekend has ended as usual, with a downpour. Saturday was very nice, and I hope everyone was able to get outside and enjoy it. Fred got the lawn mowed, I got the front of our tractor garage painted - only the front had been primed. Today, Sunday, we hurried off to the Village Cemetery in Cabot to get photos of the damage done last week to some of the gravestones. The photo here shows part of the cemetery. The damaged stones were out of the picture on the right, and behind Fred as he took this picture. It seemed to be a random thing, as if several probably young men had galloped down the hill knocking down markers here and there as they went. As someone said to me when I questioned why anyone would do such a thing, "The dead can't hit back."

We found at least 20 stones overturned, some of them badly broken. Many were in the older section of the cemetery, with dates ranging in the mid 1800's. The Village Cemetery was opened in 1820 and is still used. I've put together a slide show of the damaged stones: Cemetery Damage, Cabot VT

Most of the stones damaged were very old and therefore, vulnerable. Years ago markers were slim slabs of either field stone or quarried stone, rarely polished, and most set into the ground without much of a base beneath them. Fred took photos of the damaged stones and I recorded what I could of the lettering on each, and when we got home I was able to locate them in my records and complete the information. We may have missed one or two, but I think we got most of them.

I'll run through a list of the names: Isaac Hills, Lucinda Lyford, Jane Walbridge, Emmaline Jacobs, Lucy Perry, Paul and Goldie Hopkins, Eliza Clark, Henry Morse, Ann Adams, Laura Cutting, Ida and Hiram Walker, William Haines, John Smith, Ann Lyford, Dr. Parley Scott, Charlotte Russell, Lucy Keniston, Mary and James Heath, Willie Smith, and one we couldn't read but we think is part of the Farr family lot. There may be a few names you'll see on the slides that I didn't mention here because you can plainly read the stones.

Let me know if I can be of any help in further identifying any of the stones damaged. Everyone is quite concerned that this has happened.