The first cemetery in Waterbury was located on Grand Street, where the Silas Bronson Library is today. It was divided into the main section, for white Protestants, and a smaller section to the side for African Americans and Native Americans. A third section was added in the nineteenth century for Roman Catholics.

Additional cemeteries were established beginning in the 1740s as new parishes were founded in what are now neighboring towns. These new cemeteries do not appear to have been segregated. In Westbury (now Watertown), for example, Dauphin Freeman, an African American man, is buried next to Wealthy Skilton, a white woman.

The Grand Street Cemetery and African American Burials

Founded by the Puritan ancestors of the Congregationalists, the Grand Street cemetery was the first cemetery in Waterbury and was the only cemetery for the center of Waterbury until 1853. It was eventually divided into separate sections for Episcopalians and later still for Catholics. In addition, there was a burial plot specifically for non-whites. Sturges Judd, caretaker of the Grand Street cemetery from 1862 to 1891, referred to this as the “colored burial plot” in his inventory map of the cemetery.

The Grand Street cemetery began to decline in use and condition following the opening of the new, picturesque Riverside Cemetery in 1853. Some remains were relocated by family members to Riverside, but the Grand Street Cemetery continued to be in use for several more decades. By the 1880s, it was being called a “closed up and desolate place” in the heart of the city. It was at this time that the cemetery’s custodian, Sturges Judd, undertook the task of locating and mapping every grave plot in the Grand Street Cemetery. His records found approximately 800 inscribed stones and roughly 1,800 unmarked graves.

Judd’s record book includes a map of the cemetery in which he plotted out every marked grave, and overlaid a grid on the cemetery. Each square of the grid is 25 x 25 feet and is both numbered and lettered to correspond with his inventory list of grave stones. Section F1 is described as “Passway through the cemetery to part of the colored burial plot.” Section E1 is described as “No headstones - This plot was used to bury Colored people.”

Location of the Cemetery

The main entrance to the Grand Street Cemetery appears to have been on Hall Street. Hall Street, which no longer exists, was a partial boundary on the west side of the cemetery, in between what is now the library and Library Park. Library Park was the site of a dozen homes, a few businesses, and three small streets: Hall, Livery and Cedar.

The Grand Street Cemetery Disappears

The original plans for converting the cemetery to a public park or site for a public building included a provision for relocating all of the graves in the cemetery. Many of the remains were relocated by family members to new cemeteries, but most of the remains, including ones with grave markers as well as those without, were not relocated.

Some remains, including those of John Southmayd and Mark Leavenworth, respected colonial-era ministers, were examined by a local doctor, William H. Holmes, who published his findings in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 1891. Holmes was surprised by the high state of preservation of Southmayd’s skull and ear bones. Photos of the skull were published in the article, comparing it with that of an American Indian from the midwest. Southmayd's ear bones were given to the Mattatuck Historical Society and were on exhibit in the Mattatuck Museum during the early decades of the twentieth century.

In April of 1891, the remaining grave stones were buried directly above the graves to which they belonged. In some cases two or three stones were buried together. Others were grouped together in what was once the cemetery vault.

Construction of the Library

In 1893, excavations for the construction of the Silas Bronson library unearthed many of the buried grave markers and graves. The exhumed remains were relocated to the southwest corner of the library’s property, and the grave stones were placed in storage in the library’s basement. Accounts of the construction indicate that the excavations were limited to the footprint of the library building, and the area to the east of the building, leaving the “colored burial plot” to the north untouched.

The library property was expanded in 1920 with the creation of Library Park, which extended the grounds to Meadow Street. Grave stones that had been in storage in the library basement were placed along the outer wall of the park.

In the 1960s, the library was replaced with a new, modern structure built almost entirely on the foundations of the original building. Since that time, utility lines have been run underground from Grand Street to the library, but were not placed deep enough to disturb the graves.

A rough estimate puts the site of the “colored burial plot” by the sidewalk in front of the current library, near a sculpture, Benjamin Franklin, by Paul Wayland.

Dr. Preserved Porter and his family were buried roughly 200 feet south of the “colored burial plot,” directly behind the current library. It is likely that the Porter graves, like those of the African Americans, were left untouched during the library construction and are still there today.

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