Wilsonville Cemetery 

Wilsonville Road, Thompson    0.72 acres
GPS Latitude 42.01130 Longitude -71.88370

The Wilsonville Cemetery is a neighborhood cemetery with the earliest burial recorded in the Hale Collection identified as Nathaniel Shieffield who died December 28, 1791.

This cemetery is identified in Thompson Town records as block 77, lot 63, lot 5; there is no deed. Numerous veterans of the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War are buried here. The Thompson Historical Society volunteers cannot verify the military service of Captain Laban Thurber Wilson who is buried in this cemetery.

One person of interest buried here is Dyer Arnold Upham (1824-1907) who has been credited with reviving the barred Plymouth rock hen. Because this breed provides both good quality meat and good egg production, it was encouraged by the federal government during World Wars I and II.

Wilsonville is one of the cemeteries in Thompson that has undergone significant restoration. Trees, brush and debris were removed, and many tombstones were reset. During this process, the footstones were removed from their original location and attached to the back of the primary tombstone to facilitate the on-going maintenance of the cemetery.

Unique to this cemetery is that of the Charles Davis family, which is a four-sided zinc marker, today often referred to as a “zinky”. In the late 1880s, the Monumental Bronze Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut sold white bronze markers which were not white nor were they bronze; they were made entirely of zinc and are bluish gray in color. Three sides of the monument have panels detailing the birth and deaths of family members; the inset panel on each side is different. The fourth panel is engraved with a cross entwined with ivy.

The panel for two of the daughters of Charles Davis and his wife Betsy, Mary Frances and Elizabeth, both died in 1854 and are “buried at Chicago, Ill”. Since these girls were buried in Illinois, but have a marker here in Thompson. this is called a cenotaph, from the Greek words kenos taphos meaning ’empty tomb’. Attempts to find why these children died in Illinois were not successful.

The Wilsonville Cemetery in the document section below may help in locating a tombstone; this is the original Hale’s List of Cemetery Inscriptions which records the gravestone locations as the person who collected the information walked through the cemetery.

Ida Ransom, July 2024

Documents:
Hale