Old West View Cemetery

I am the Old West View Cemetery and my nickname is the Revolutionary War Cemetery. I began in Hampton Falls back when a new meeting-house was built in 1768. There was a lot of arguing where to put me, but it was finally decided in 1781.  My spot here is near the geographical center of town. The land I’m on was purchased from Jeremiah Lane for fifteen dollars to establish a “parish cemetery” for the new parish of Hampton Falls, newly separated from Seabrook. This land was laid out to be me, Old West View Cemetery, on what is now Nason Road.  The first person buried in me was Deacon Elisha Prescott in 1781, the year the cemetery was laid out. Many men buried here served in the Revolutionary War, so folks started calling me the Revolutionary War Cemetery. Notice my lovely antique fence by the road.

Pause here to visit me and see some of the oldest graves in town. Do you see a rail enclosure around a grave near the center? That is the burial spot of a very important man, Samuel Langdon. Langdon was a president of Harvard College and an old friend of George Washington! He was a very distinguished scholar and theologian. Now look around and see which way the gravestones are facing. You might notice there are rows, and notice which way the inscriptions face. Walk up and down the rows, and you will see that the rows face toward the middle. Look at the antique fence again, and try to see where my old entrance was.  That’s right, it’s right up my middle!  One more thing to notice – most of the graves here had a headstone and a footstone, a smaller marker placed at the foot of a grave to mark the plot boundary.

Find the grave of Deacon Elisha Prescutt. Can you see the inscription that reads, “The first body interred in this burying yard – 1781.”  Jeremiah Lane, the gravestone carver from the Seacoast, carved the beautiful lettering and scrollwork. Jeremiah Lane also did the carvings on the gravestones of Hannah Wadleigh, Abigail Robie, Sarah Blake, and members of the Tilton family. See if you find more gravestones by Jeremiah Lane and you will begin to recognize his style of carving.
Thanks for coming to see me!