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Introduction
In the fall of 2002, a group of volunteers recorded the inscriptions of the existing stones in the Old
Wintonbury Cemetery (Old Bloomfield Cemetery)
north of the Congregational Church. There are many stones that have fallen; some are over-turned. There are many from which the inscriptions have worn away to the point of illegibility. What follows is an attempt to organize the data that was taken into (hopefully) useful forms.
Beginning at the northwest corner the entire cemetery was divided into squares. Rows parallel to Tunxis Avenue were designated by letters
of the alphabet from A to W; those perpendicular were designated by numbers from 1 to 29. Since the cemetery is irregular in shape, not all combinations of letters and numbers exist.
Further, roads running through the cemetery imply large empty areas as well. Since the rows of gravestones parallel to Tunxis Avenue are nearly ten feet apart this was the measurement used throughout. Squares could contain more than one stone, and frequently footstones existed as well.
Data was recorded in such a way as to resemble the inscriptions, and also included, is
a brief description of the condition of each stone. The intent was to use the designation system described above the locate each area, but this occasionally failed for various reasons.
Since the original field work, data sheets have been photocopied. They have also been numbered in a completely arbitrary manner.
These numbers have been plotted on the sheet labeled Coverage by page of Old Bloomfield Cemetery.
As can be seen, there have been several instances of double coverage, sometimes with conflicting data. Unfortunately, at this time (February 2004) there is also no guarantee that empty areas on this sheet correspond exactly to empty areas in the cemetery. There is work ahead.
Of the pages that follow, the following information may be useful.
Old Bloomfield Cemetery 2002 attempts to show the person(s) buried in each area together with
dates of death and ages.
Gravestones in Old Bloomfield Cemetery (2002) lists the data by grid coordinate.
Where two names appear on the same stone, the third column (*) separates the names by their order on the stone. The last three columns give page references to the three sources of information: The Hale Headstone Inscription Collection (Kingsbury) is the listing made by Nelson L. Kingsbury in 1934 and reproduced in a separate section;
Data is the original data page number; Laun refers to the incredible compilation of Wintonbury Church Records by Carol Laun of the Salmon Brook Historical Society in Granby, CT.
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