WRITTEN BY JEN LYNDS

W. John Funk, president and trustee of Stewards of the Western Cemetery, said that although their voices were silenced hundreds of years ago, the dead are still excellent historians.

“Their voices are reliable, and they have a compelling story to tell,” he said in a recent interview. “It just takes more digging to find their story.”

The Western Cemetery is in Portland, with its main gate at Vaughan and Clifford streets. It served as Portland’s primary municipal cemetery from 1829 to 1852.

In 2001, Stewards of the Western Cemetery created a restoration master plan for the burial ground. The organization, having reorganized in 2021, now focuses on rehabilitating more than 800 damaged tombstones and identifying hundreds more.

“We have 15 or 16 regular volunteers, and we’ve had another 50 or 60 volunteers who regularly come and help us out with projects,” Funk said. “We also partner with a couple of groups, such as the Boy Scouts. This is a natural draw for people who want to come and learn about history and the city’s past.”

Funk said that each summer, a nationally recognized conservator trains volunteers in stone preservation.

“It is great to get involved and know that you are doing something good for the future,” he said.

In 2006, the Eastern Cemetery at 224 Congress St. was in equally desperate shape. That is when Spirits Alive, a nonprofit organization composed of a 10- to 12-member, all-volunteer board of directors, was organized to maintain and beautify the burial grounds. That includes preserving stones and educating the public about the 7,000 souls interred there.

Ron Romano is a cemetery historian and board member of Spirits Alive.

“This site is the oldest historic landscape in the city,” he said. “It was the only burying ground on the Portland peninsula for a couple hundred years. As Eastern Cemetery became overcrowded, the city opened the Western Cemetery. History unfolds as soon as you walk through the gate.”

Romano said that volunteers become interested in the group slowly but remain interested for a long time.

“They might come for a tour and then join us for a cleanup day,” he said. “Then they become a tour guide and stick with that. We are constantly looking for volunteers. We want people to get interested in their city’s history.”