A Tour of the Huse Cemetery (Center Cemetery), Manchester, New Hampshire

Last night more than a dozen people showed up at the Huse Cemetery on Mammoth Road in Manchester, New Hampshire last night for tour led by archaeologist Matt Labbe.   This cemetery is also known as the Derryfield Cemetery or the Center Cemetery, because at one time it was the center of Derryfield and Manchester.  The meetinghouse was located on the spot where the boulder is now located, and the cemetery was behind the meetinghouse. The white house to the left of the cemetery was the post office.  When the mills were built on the river in the 1830, the center of civic and commercial activity moved down towards the millyard.  When Mammoth Road was widened, the meetinghouse was moved to the site of the Baptist Church (to the right of the cemetery), but that building burned to the ground in 1973.

The first burial in this cemetery was around 1769, and there are many members of the HUSE, HALL, STEVEN, WEBSTER, YOUNG and JACKSON families buried here.

This tour was arranged by David Wilson, the administrator of the popular Facebook Group "All About Manchester; Manchester, NH Old and New" at this link:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1562051994040817/    There are over 2,400 members of this group, who share vintage and historic photos and stories about Manchester history.  Over a dozen members came to the tour last night, and walked around the cemetery with David and Matt Labbe hearing the history of Derryfield, the neighborhood, and the people buried here in this little cemetery.  Monique Labbe also told the history of her home, which is the old house that served as the former post office.

I think social media is a great way to get like minded "history geeks" together for these types of events, and I hope that Dave's group puts together more of these tours.  If you are interested in the local history of Manchester, go over to Facebook and join this very active group.

For more information:

See the Find A Grave profile for Huse Cemetery (88% photographed, with 89 memorials listed):   https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/102923

A 1993 survey of the oldest Manchester cemeteries online (343 pages long including errors and omissions from the WPA survey done in the 1930s):
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-958D-76Z6?i=8&wc=M6GS-YZS%3A226981501%2C226981402&cc=1930346

For a history of the cemetery, see Janice Webster Brown's webpage:   http://www.nh.searchroots.com/HillsboroughCo/Manchester/cem_center.html 


---------------------------------

Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "A Tour of the Huse Cemetery (Center Cemetery), Manchester, New Hampshire", Nutfield Genealogy, posted August 21, 2018, (https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-tour-of-huse-cemetery-center-cemetery.html: accessed [access date]).