Conway's cemeteries cover the map, fill history books

By David Carkhuff

One of the most challenging parts of hiring on at the Conway Recreation Department as a maintenance worker involves learning the location of 21 cemeteries scattered around town.Conway Recreation Director John Eastman explained, "They're really, really spread out. When we go from East Conway all the way to South Conway all the way up to Willey Cemetery, we're close to 50 miles."The Willey Cemetery, located behind Moat Mountain Smokehouse, while located off the beaten path, is one of many local cemeteries with a colorful history. Crawford Notch State Park describes the story of the Willeys as follows: "During the fall of 1825, Samuel Willey Jr. of Bartlett moved into a small house in the heart of Crawford Notch with his wife, five children, and two hired men. The first year the three men enlarged and improved the house, which the family operated as an inn to accommodate travelers through the mountains on the desolate notch road. The little cluster of buildings was situated in the shadow of what is now called Mount Willey."In June, following a heavy rain, the Willeys were terrified when they witnessed a great mass of soil and vegetation, torn loose from the mountainside across the river, slide in a path of destruction to the valley floor. As a result, Mr. Willey built a cave-like shelter a short distance above the house to which the family could flee if a slide threatened their side of the valley."During the night of August 28, 1826, after a long drought which had dried the mountain soil to an unusual depth, came one of the most violent and destructive rain storms ever known in the White Mountains. The Saco River rose 20 feet overnight. Livestock was carried off, farms set afloat, and great gorges were cut in the mountains."Two days after the storm, anxious friends and relatives penetrated the debris-strewn valley to learn the fate of the Willey family. They found the house unharmed, but the surrounding fields were covered with debris. Huge boulders, trees, and masses of soil had been swept from Mt. Willey's newly bared slopes. The house had escaped damage because it was apparently situated just below a ledge that divided the major slide into two streams. The split caused the slide to pass by the house on both sides leaving it untouched. Inside, beds appeared to have been left hurriedly, a Bible lay on the table, and the dog howled mournfully."Mr. and Mrs. Willey, two children, and both hired men were found nearby, crushed in the wreckage of the slide. The bodies were buried near the house and later moved to Conway. Three children were never found."The loop of town-maintained cemeteries includes: two on West Side Road across from Sidetrack Road; two near the entrance to Hale's Estates, on either side of the railroad tracks; Cedar Creek on West Side Road; two cemeteries on Route 302 west of the state line near old Route 302; one along East Conway Road on the right before Twombly's Market; two on Davis Hill Road in Center Conway; one on Greeley Road overlooking Conway Lake; two on Baird Hill; two on Gulf Road; one (Merrill Cemetery) behind the White Deer Motel across from Merrill Farm Resort; Willey Cemetery; Stark Road Cemetery; a Modock Road cemetery; one on Allard Hill on the way to Madison; and one on Dolloff Hill Road."There are two different ways that cemeteries are maintained," explained David Emerson of the Conway Historical Society. "Some cemeteries have cemetery associations. The ones that don't have an association fall into the responsibility of the town."The first cemetery in Conway, at Meeting House Hill, no longer exists, as it was paved over and now sits under Route 302."Conway's first cemetery is under a highway," Emerson noted. "It's down by the police station, which was the original center of town because everything was always put in a geographical center because it was so hard to get anywhere."This first cemetery emerged near the town's meeting house. Town officials started moving those graves into other villages, notably in Center Conway and North Conway."There are a couple of different stories about what happened to the stones, but I think they're all apocryphal," Emerson said.Of the 46 inventoried cemeteries in town, several others were moved in the early years. Conway Village Cemetery was moved twice, starting out somewhere in the area where the current Kennett High School athletic fields are located, Emerson said. When the railroad came through, the town exhumed the bodies and moved this cemetery to Pleasant Street. (In an historical sidenote, a human skeleton was found by someone digging a cellar hole on Pleasant Street, evidence of this past cemetery.) Finally, Conway Village Cemetery was moved to its current location off of Washington Street."They were much more likely to move people in the early days, and people that died in the Revolution wouldn't be as likely to get home," Emerson said, referring to the era's primitive transportation and preservation methods.On Stark Road, Stark Cemetery contains a cenotaph, meaning a monument to a person buried somewhere else. In this case, the tombstone honors General John Stark even though he is not buried there but in Manchester, Emerson noted.More information on local cemeteries is available from the Conway Public Library Web site at http://conway.lib.nh.us/cemetery/cemeterytoc.htm.