Dear Sir; In a large number of cases it is probable that the remains of the dead laid in the Grand Burial Ground of New London will have become so commingled with the earth in which they were deposited that, were it desirable, it would be impracticable to remove them to another locality. It is probable that the earth to which they have thus been fully returned will to some extent be disturbed in the adaptation of the ground to the purpose which your Board has been commissioned to serve. The removal of the grave stones will be a necessity. Under these circumstances the question must have arisen in many minds whether the project is not an ill-advised one?

In considering it, the following circumstances are to be weighed.

The ground was unsuitable to the purpose of a burial place as that purpose is now generally regarded. This is shown by the fact that a part of it has at different times been used as a quarry and large quantities of building stone taken out from and brought through it and the further fact that in digging graves rock has in numerous instances been found so near the surface that to secure a decent interment earth has been drawn from elsewhere and piled over the coffins. The position of graves has been determined with reference to no uniform system and their disposition as a whole is a desultory and disorderly one, in parts closely crowded, elsewhere scattered and straggling.

Provision has been {evidently} neglected for keeping the ground in a decorous or even in neat and tidy condition. The graves have for the most part not simply been neglected but have been tramped over without compunction. There are well defined foot paths through the ground leading over them and their ancient headstones have been often kicked and battered by irreverent wayfarers. So far as the general aspect of the ground expresses the sentiment of the community that sentiment is not one of honor or reverence for the dead but the reverse.

To fully understand how such treatment of a burial ground could have been established we have to recall the fact that in the old countries from which our ancestors came it was, as in many localities it still is unusual that the remains of the dead are left long in undisturbed graves. The gravedigger, as in Hamlet, is constantly throwing them out by fragments and it is even customary in many grounds from time {to time} to collect skulls and the more lasting bones and heap them together indiscriminately in common charnel houses or ossuaries.

To most of us at the present time this ancient custom in all incidents has become repugnant, and the thought is a natural one that where a burial ground still exists which appears in any marked degree dilapidated, neglected, & dishonored, it should be revised to some degree in accordance with the more modern sentiment.

But in this case the particular form of disorder depends too much upon the original topography of the ground to admit of anything like a complete or satisfactory remedy.

Under these circumstances, the ground lying in the midst of a city, it has been determined that the ground shall be appropriated to other purposes. No suitable plan for adapting it to these purposes can be devised that does not involve a general removal of grave stones from their original positions.

Under these circumstances the following proposition is submitted:

A portion of the original burial ground to be set apart as a place in which remains of the dead that your board may find it necessary to disturb may be reverently redeposited and in which all monumental records that may be collected from other parts of the ground may be decorously treasured. All monuments not in the form of slabs (head stones), to be reset entire and that part of all others in which the record is inscribed to be given the form of mural tablets in a uniform firm setting of masonry and so protected as to secure their lasting preservation. The means used for this purpose and all the accessories to be as little as possible discordant with the ancient, time-worn and historic aspect of the monumental stones. The part of the ground assigned to the purpose to be laid out, planted and kept as a distinctive general memorial of the body of people and of the portion of the history of the city of which the inscriptions on the stones would testify.

To carry out this suggestion it would be necessary as I roughly estimate [216]to use little more than a tenth part of the entire space which the law places at your disposal.

Awaiting your instructions upon this point, before proceeding with the general design of the premises. I am, dear Sir,

Respectfully Yours