Aldrich Cemetery

Aldrich Cemetery (also known as Coman Cemetery)

Brickyard Road/Off Mountain Hill Road, North Grosvenordale 2 acres
GPS Latitude 41.99107 Longitude -71.91917

The signage at this cemetery reads: “Coman Cemetery Established in the 1840’s by John G. Coman who had the foresight to set aside this quiet plot of land for his family and generations of Coman’s who had and will follow.” The first record of a cemetery on this land is a 1917 deed of the John G. Coman farm which explicitly names the “Coman Cemetery Lot”.

How it became known as the Aldrich Cemetery is unknown since all written references to it are the Coman Cemetery.

According to the Hale Collection, its first burial was that of John G. Coman who died December 4, 1877. In 1932, Ida Aldrich Martin and several others created the Coman Cemetery Trust. As late as 1990, contributions were still being made to the Trust. This continues to be a family cemetery; the most recent burial was in 2010. The cemetery is listed with its own Thompson Map ID 40/89/22, although it is located on privately held property.

At the time of the Hale Collection cemetery surveys in the 1930’s, there were only eleven (11) stones with four family names, i.e., Aldrich, Coman, Codding and Shead. Viewing the genealogy data for these named people shows that most were related to John G. Coman who owned the original farm. Ellen Coman, daughter of John G., married first Parris Aldrich and when he died she married Loring Shead. Hannah Codding can only be identified as being connected to Diana Coman through a probate record; she is not a sibling to Diana since her birth name is Tyler and Diana’s was Greene.

There are two Civil War soldiers interred in this cemetery…… Parris H. Aldrich and John L. Coman. Both men mustered into Co. D of the 18 th Connecticut Infantry in August 1862 as privates and both were wounded June 5, 1864, in the Battle of Piedmont, recognized as the bloodiest battle of the Shenandoah Valley because 800 Union and 1,500 Confederate soldiers died in this one battle. John was imprisoned, paroled and
mustered out of the service June 14, 1865. Parris was promoted to Corporal and mustered out August 18, 1864. Both soldiers received pensions Given that Ellen E. Coman was the wife of Parris and sister to John, it had to have been a difficult time for her.

Since Ellen had remarried in 1877 after Parris’s death in 1876, she was unable to collect his Civil War pension. When her second husband died in 1915, she was able to re-apply for benefits from Parris’s service and was able to receive a Civil War Widow’s pension.

A more recent veteran burial is that of Herbert W. Coman, III, 58, of 27 Rose Avenue, Gilmanton, NH who died at the Lakes Region General Hospital, Laconia, NH, Friday July 16, 2010. He had served in the US Armed Forces for 22 years and retired as a Captain in the US Army.

Ida Ransom, July 2024

Documents:
Aldrich Cemetery – Hale’s List of Cemetery Inscriptions