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Gray Village Cemetery is comprised of approximately 28 acres at the intersections of Routes 100, 202, and 115 in the center of Gray Village, Cumberland County, Maine. An estimated 5,600 are buried here.
The Gray Village Cemetery is the largest in town and the only one in active use. It was opened in 1784, records of town historian George Hill state, when Daniel Libby, a prominent businessman here at the time, deeded to the town two acres of land for the site of the Parish Church house and a cemetery adjacent.
The Mayall family woolen mill proprietors are buried here, although their private tomb in the cemetery has been covered and been unused for many years.
Probably the grave provoking the widest interest is that of "Stranger", the grave of a Confederate soldier whose body was shipped here by mistake at the Civil War's end and who has never been identified. The "Ladies of Gray" erected a marble stone which is annually decorated with a Confederate flag and an American flag.
The town is proud of the tradition of having held the first "Decoration Day" in the nation, in October before national observance was announced the following spring. It was held in Gray Village Cemetery when the family of George Perley, whose brother had been lost in the Civil War, with a few friends and the Rev. Ebenezer Bean of the Congregational Church, met in the cemetery for a service. Little is known of this early ceremony which was held to honor the dead
Union soldier whose body had been brought back for burial in the family lot.
Gray Historical Society
Gray, Maine
Billion Graves