If you have a town, and you have at least one church, then you are in need of a cemetery. The first settlers to any area lacked a ‘sanctified ground’ in which to inter their deceased family members, so they would have a ‘family burial plot’ on their own property. The Burtt House at the lower end of Bible Hill Road has such a private cemetery on premises.

The most visible cemetery in Bennington is Sunnyside, established in the early 1800s. Originally, the land belonged to the Whittemore Family, and was the location of their ‘family plot’ since their house was across the road.

Located at the intersection of Main Street, Bible Hill Road, and Eaton Avenue — conveniently between the Congregational and the Baptist Churches — the land was purchased by the Town in 1850. Perched on a steep hill, the deceased would have a fine view South-West up the Main Street of the village, and would see the first light of dawn on Judgement Day.

It was called Sand Hill Cemetery. [Surely the grave-diggers were happy that the land there was sandy!] The oldest headstones are from 1817, as seen at the right. Oddly, they are not graves of Whittemores. In the mid-1800s, people wanted their beloved deceased relatives to be near-by, in a pretty, park-like place. Sand Hill reflected those ideas of a peaceful, shaded resting place where families would visit the graves for a pleasant outing, complete with picnic baskets. Trees were planted to create a park in the former pasture. Many of the citizens who were founders of the Town are buried there. The headstones read like a Who’s Who of early Bennington.

In 1891, a town vote declined to expand the cemetery, ending the selling of new plots, although burials continued well into the 1900s. In 1913, the Whittemore family gave an iron fence and gates to enclose the cemetery. They insisted that the name be changed from Sand Hill to Sunnyside, the name on the gates we see today.

In Northern New England, burials typically occurred within a few days of death — especially in hot weather. But in the winter, the ground was frozen solid and graves could not be dug. Thus the Town built a ‘receiving tomb’ in 1888, and placed it at the back of the cemetery. Coffins and their contents would be stored in the crypt until the ground could be worked and burials could resume. In 1921, will all the previous improvements, a new ‘winter crypt’ was built, handsomely set into the slope of the hill.

The next installment of the Bennington NH Historical Society Blog will be posted on July 23, 2024. If you click the Subscribe button, all future posts will be sent straight to your inbox every month – for free.