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Library Park Cemetery, Waterbury, New Haven County, Connecticut, USA:
Grand Street Cemetery was abandoned in 1891 to make way for the public library. A few of the old stones are set in front of the retaining wall on Meadow Street. This is all that is left to indicate a burial ground was here.
The following are excerpts from Ancient Burying-Grounds of the Town of Waterbury Connecticut, compiled and edited by Katharine A. Prichard, published by The Mattatuck Historical Society, 1917. The Grand Street Cemetery on "Burying-Yard Hill". The earliest mention of a burial place in Waterbury is in 1695. This was the only place of burial within the township until 1709. Sturges M. Judd was the custodian of the place from 1862 until its destruction in 1891. Soon after the opening of Riverside cemetery in 1853, removals from the old to the new place of burial were begun, and the old place soon showed the effect thereof. Re-opened graves, with fragments of coffins left uncovered in them, and overturned headstones and footstones became features of the place, and before many years had passed, the ground was overgrown with weeds, briers and bushes, save that a few careful hands kept in order the graves of their friends and relatives. Mr. Sturges prepared a complete map of the Grand Street burying-ground, and a copy of the map accompanied by a record of the names and ages of the persons interred as found upon the headstones, and a list as far as known, of person there buried without monumental stones, including the Roman Catholic cemetery was deposited in the public library. On April 26, 1882, interest in the Grand Street Cemetery was conveyed from the Town of Waterbury to the City of Waterbury. "The city shall make arrangements for suitable places in other cemeteries to which the remains and monuments remaining in said old burial grounds may be removed, in all cases where friends of those buried in the old burial grounds do not provide for the same. . . Upon the passage of the final decree and the payment to the parties of the respective sums, and the removal of the remaining bodies and monuments from the old burial grounds, said old burial grounds shall be used as a public park by the city of Waterbury, or the same may be used for any suitable public building, or other public purpose." In 1891, excavations were done and the remaining stones were sunken out of sight, at times over the graves to which they belonged and in some cases two or three stones were buried together. The remainder were placed in what was once "the vault." The grounds were subsequently graded, and a portion of the land was conveyed to the board of agents of the Bronson Library. A record of the bodies removed in the spring of 1891 was kept by Nelson J. Welton. Some were taken out of town, some removed to Mill Plain cemetery and others to Riverside.