Union Cemetery

Stratford, Connecticut

Union Cemetery is located at the end of Temple Court, off Main Street in Stratford, Connecticut. (Not to be confused with the "haunted" Union Cemetery in Easton, Connecticut.) "Union Cemetery dates its inception from a deed given by Thaddeus Peck, dated Sept. 29, 1817 to a number of inhabitants of Stratford named in said deed." The cemetery records burials as far back as the 1720s, but it is still very much in use. Common surnames include Beach, Beardsley, Beers, Curtis and Lewis. There are also a number of veterans interred here.

If you are interested in maritime disasters, read on. Lewis Skidmore, a passenger on the Carpathia when the ship rescued survivors of the Titanic disaster, is buried here. He drew sketches detailing the tragedy from a survivor's account. Notably, the sketches show the Titanic breaking in two before plunging below the waves, a fact most people did not believe until Robert Ballard found the wreckage in 1985. This is also the final resting place of Jane and Grace MacFarquhar. The mother and daughter both survived the fatal attack on the Lusitania.

Estimated number of interments, as of April 2025: at least 7,598.

Photos taken 17 April 2025.

The entrance to Union Cemetery, at the end of Temple Court.

"UNION CEMETERY

1870

THIS IS A CEMETERY

Lives are commemorated - Deaths are recorded

Families are reunited - Memories are made tangible

And love is undisguised - This is a cemetery

Communities accord respect, families bestow reverence, historians seek information and our heritage is thereby enriched.

Testimonies of devotion, pride and remembrance are carved in stone to pay warm tribute to accomplishments and to the life - not the death of a loved one. The cemetery is homeland for family memorials that are a sustaining source of comfort to the living.

A cemetery is a history of people - a perpetual record of yesterday and a sanctuary of peace and quiet today. A cemetery exists because every life is worth loving and remembering - always."

MacFarquhar

Father, John (1856 - 1926) - killed in an explosion on Christmas Day.

Mother, Jane (1862 -1942) and daughter, Grace (1898 - 1979) both survived the sinking of the RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915. Of 1,960 passengers, 767 survived. The ship, steaming from New York to Liverpool, was struck by a torpedo fired from German U-boat, U-20.

There are many members of the Beach clan buried in Union Cemetery. This is one of their monuments, one of the more elaborate memorials in the cemetery.

"Dedicated to the honor of the men and women who served in defense of their country

Let none forget they gave their all and faltered not when came the gall

1939

Erected by the American Legion

Anderson-Dunn-Kochiss Post 42"

Celtic cross of Stiles Judson (1862 - 1914) and wife, Minnie Lee Miles (1865 - 1938).

SKIDMORE

Lewis Palmer Skidmore (1877 - 1955) and Emily Cordelia Vinton Skidmore (1884 - 1959).

The Skidmores were passengers on the Carpathia when the Titanic struck an iceberg. The Carpathia was the only ship to heed the Titanic's distress call and rescued the doomed ocean liner's survivors. Jack Thayer, who was brought aboard the Carpathia, described the sinking to Skidmore, who drew sketches detailing the disaster. Notably, the sketches show the Titanic breaking in two before plunging below the waves, a fact most people did not believe until Robert Ballard found the wreckage in 1985. According to one report, "Lewis Skidmore had to buy fresh shirts and collars, as his own had been given to survivors."

"Ernst Kollenborg

1893 - 1925"

"Arthur W.

son of Hugh & Signe Aitken

Jan. 28. 1902 - July 15, 1902"

"Spanish American War

Harry L. Stagg

BTRY. B. I C. V.H.A

Died Aug.18, 1920

AE. 45"

Freddie R. Boothe (1874 - 25 January 1882; buried on the Lewis plot)

According to the Connecticut Western News (published in Salisbury, CT), February 1, 1882 edition, "Freddie Boothe, aged 8, fell into the sound at Bridgeport last Tuesday, and drowned."