Hidden Necropolis

including members of the Wheelock family, Richard Hall ’27 (after whom Dick’s House—originally Dick Hall’s House—is named) and Mary Maynard Hitchcock. Although its plots were sold off in the 1970s, scrupulous maintenance by the College and the Town of Hanover has kept the parklike grounds a serene place of remembrance.

700 Approximate number of head- stones and monu- ments conserved by Fannin-Lehner Preservation Con- sultants of Concord, Massachusetts— headed by James Fannin Jr. ’58 and his wife, Minxie—in the past 24 years. Done every summer, conservation work can require anything from adhesive repair to the casting of new concrete bases. “Gravestones and monuments have all sorts of problems,” says Minxie. “Some are tilting, broken or loose in or on the base.”

$5 Price for the cemetery’s least ex- pensive plots in the 1920s (about $68 in today’s dollars)

Buried Tombstones In 1991 the original slate headstones of Eleazar and Mary Brinsmead Wheelock were found buried under the current ones. Heavy and fragile, these slates are now stored in Rauner.

Package Deal As late as the 1960s, a plot of 12 graves could be purchased for about $100 (about $750 in today’s dollars).

Gone Too Soon Not far from the main entrance on Cemetery Lane is “Students’ Row.” The section was created for students who died on campus before 1847, when a new train stop at White River Junc- tion, Vermont, made it easier for families to take their loved ones home.

Sun and Run Students in the 1970s often sunbathed in the cemetery, an activity eventually prohibited by Safety & Security.

Dead Serious One of the last major maps of the cemetery was made in 1950 by Arthur Chivers, class of 1902. Fifty years after exploring the grounds as a freshman, Chivers, then a professor of biology, used the journal of William Worthington Dewey (who had drawn a list of deaths “in the vicinity of Dartmouth College from 1777-1861”) to update all of the existing cemetery charts and create a new card index for every known burial plot. The resulting six-volume record, added to the Col- lege archives in 1963, can be found in Rauner.

10 The number of cemeteries in the original Hanover township. The College cemetery is the largest and oldest.

$12,000 The amount of money spent by the College every year on headstone conservation and grounds mainte- nance. Although the cemetery was deeded to the Town of Hanover in June of 1943, its notable graves and proxim- ity to the College have kept its ties to Dartmouth strong.

Grave Beginnings The first person to be buried at the cemetery was the Rev. John Maltby, Eleazar Wheelock’s stepson, who died from fever at age 45 on September 30, 1771.

8 Number of College presidents laid to rest at the cemetery: Eleazar Wheelock; his son, John Whee- lock, class of 1771; Francis Brown, class of 1805; Nathan Lord; Asa Dodge Smith, class of 1830; Samuel Bartlett, class of 1836; Wil- liam Jewett Tucker, class of 1861; and John Kemeny

1,200 Approximate num- ber of graves. Many are now unmarked.