Westport is a lively town.
Every day, “06880” reports on life here: people of all ages, organizations of all kinds, events of all types that make living here so much fun.
From time to time, we cover dead people too.
We’ve written several times about the town’s cemeteries. One of the most interesting is Kings Highway Colonial Cemetery.
Kings Highway Colonial Cemetery. (Photo/Josh Berkowsky)
It’s not big. It’s pretty visible — on the much-traveled corner of Kings Highway North and Wilton Road, directly across from the medical center — but easy to miss unless, stopped at the traffic light, you happen to glance around.
It’s the final resting place of some famous folks.
The Taylor family — who gave their name to the neighborhood then called Taylortown (the nearby marsh is still called that) — share a large section with the Marvins (of tavern fame).
Abigail Taylor’s grave.
A non-family member is also interred there: Dinah, a “colored” servant and cook. (That was not a common practice, for sure.)
There’s the Judah family too, among the first Jewish residents of Westport (then part of Norwalk). Michael moved from New York City because of anti-Semitism. His son Henry became an Episcopal minister; Henry’s son, Henry Moses Judah, was a brigadier general in the Mexican-American and Civil Wars.
Earlier this year, Henry Moses Judah — the last Civil War general with an unmarked grave — finally received his headstone.
In 2020, at the request of a reader, “06880” wrote about the debris and disrepair at the Kings Highway cemetery — one of the oldest and most historic in town.
Four years later, another reader reports that the graveyard is still a mess.
Josh Berkowsky has lived in Westport for all his 23 years. He loves local history. And he’s distressed at the state of the burial ground.
Josh writes: “The town-owned cemetery is in abysmal condition. Headstones are subject to all manner of damage — not only the weathering you’d expect from 300-plus years of New England rain and snow, but also chipping, cracking and other structural damage.
(Photo/Josh Berkowsky)
“Some have fallen over completely. Others bend at odd angles. Some are just leaning against their bases.
“I even found a pile of headstones, loosely stacked against a tree together. Another is partially inside a stump.
“The burial vaults, which are one of the site’s most striking features from the road and what drew me to it in the first place, are nearly completely sunk into the ground, their entrances obscured by years of dirt.
“Even worse, among the landscaping issues, which included the usual loose sticks, leaves and overgrown sections you’d expect from decades of neglect, a number of trees have fallen on the property. A few are on headstones directly.
(Photo/Josh Berkowsky)
“Among the maintenance problems I noticed rusting fences, a broken bench, broken plot markers, and missing stones in the border wall.
“I do note with satisfaction that neighboring houses seem to be keeping up with the upkeep for the sections of the wall that border them.
“I find, when talking about it, people tend to know it from the street. But no one I’ve talked to has actually been there.
“I can’t blame them. Parking is non-existent, and busy traffic conditions plus a lack of pedestrian infrastructure make for dangerous walking even if you could park.
“I imagine this is why the site has so little foot traffic, and so few people know about the state it’s in.
“It’s sad that this little piece of history is so neglected. I imagine it might become a nice little spot in our little town, full of so many interesting stories we’re losing to time.”
(Photo/Josh Berkowsky)
Josh is right about those interesting stories. I’ve got one, from my teenage years growing up here.
At a mound not far from the road — perhaps the spot where Benedict Arnold (not yet a traitor) set up a cannon to thwart the British as they returned from their 1777 raid on Danbury (they thwarted him, taking a different route back to Compo Beach) — there was a secret, spooky spot long known to kids like me.
If you lay flat on your stomach, and peered into the area where the ground had shifted, you could see all the way down to the bottom. There — arrayed like a horror film — sat a set of bones.
I’ve forgotten many things about being a kid here.
But as long as I live, I’ll always remember that skeleton.
(“06880” covers Westport — life here today, and yesterday. If you enjoy learning about our history through this blog, please click here to support our work. Thank you!)
(Photo/Josh Berkowsky)
