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Bare Plain Cemetery A 138 year stroll I recently took a stroll of nostalgia through the Bare Plain Cemetery (located across from Jerome Harrison School). As a boy living nearby I would regularly wander through this quaint little cemetery viewing the head stones and wondering what life would have been like for some of those interned over 100 years ago. Bare Plains Cemetery was established in 1877 by Jerome and Lydia Harrison. After burying their 17 year old daughter Amoret on a corner of their property, they later deeded the property to the Bare Plains Cemetery Association, in an area commonly known as Totoket. Later, more property was deeded to the association by Jerome Harrison’s nephew John Merrick. One lasting memory of Bare Plain Cemetery from my childhood is on “mischief night” October 30th All of the kids in the neighborhood would gather together and walk through the cemetery, almost as a dare. We had to remain silent, stay on the roadway, and NEVER step on one of the grave sites. I suppose the idea was that it would be a “spooky” thing to do on the night before Halloween. One grave I clearly remember from my childhood is the Hill headstone. Erected over the gravesite of Alden Hopson Hill who was renowned in the ship building industry and who operated saw mill in town, his grave stone is a replica of an old tree trunk. So good is the workmanship, that as a boy I truly thought it to be a real tree. Another grave of notoriety was that of Ellsworth Bishop Foote. Born in North Branford in 1898, Mr. Foote served as a State Court Judge, and in the U. S. House of Congress from 1947-1949. I am told that the children from Jerome Harrison Elementary often visit the cemetery and take tracings of his and other headstones. The names on the headstones are very recognizable to even the most recent North Branford resident. Names which have roads, schools or lakes named after them (Harrison, Caputo, Fowler, Bailey, Loeber, Linsley, Chidsey, etc.) Venerable North Branford names like Auger, Rose, Page, Moore, Baldwin, Canon, and Foote. Other names that have special memories to me. Mr. Holabird who was the janitor at Jerome Harrison Elementary School when I was a student there in the 1060’s or Dick Page who delivered milk to our Kindergarten class, from his dairy on Totoket Road. Several of my childhood friends have buried their parents and grandparents there. And sadly even a few school mates who died untimely deaths. I have always felt that I would like Bare Plain to be my final resting place, close to my childhood home in the community where I was raised. However, I assumed that a small cemetery of this age was filled and closed to further internments. I was wrong! I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there are still many plots available. (For information on regular an cremation plots, contact Tom Smith at 203-484-0844). With just over 1,000 internments, Bare Plain Cemetery is not a large expansive cemetery, replete with mausoleums, chapels and people of fame. (Although it did have a chapel at one time). It is however the final resting place of many fine, salt of the earth, residents of North Branford and surrounding towns, who built a small community here in Southern Connecticut. A place and people I would be proud to lay at rest with. Who knows, perhaps some students from Jerome Harrison Elementary will be tracing my headstone one day! Dean McGlynn