Porter Cemetery

Porter Cemetery 

Babula Road, Thompson    0.83 acres
GPS Latitude 42.00702 Longitude -71.83843

Porter Cemetery is an .83-acre section of a tract of land conveyed to Ira A. Porter in 1855. Subsequent transfers of the property continue to include the provision for access to the cemetery … “Reserving the cemetery on said premises with right of passway at all times for burrial (sic) or work on same….”

According to the Hale Collection, the earliest burials in Porter are in 1824. On March 9, Sarah Porter age 2 years, 4 months and 21 days died and on March 20, Patience Kimball wife of William died at age 30.

The Hale Collection identifies several Civil War burials with Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) markers.

• • Judson Bates: Co. I, 4th Regiment, Heavy Artillery, Massachusetts Volunteers.
  • Marcus Davis: Co. F, 11th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers; research shows that both he and his wife Laura received pensions from the federal government.
  • Edgar D. Porter: Co. B, 11th Connecticut Infantry; research shows that both he and his wife Mary received pensions from the federal government.

• • • Samuel Porter: Co. B, 6th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers; he was wounded at Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia May 16, 1864.
    • Sargent Andrew Young: Co. D, 31st Massachusetts Infantry; both he and his wife received pensions.

There is one World War I veteran interred, i.e., Forest E. Young, 827th Aero Squadron, US Army Air Service; he was born in Thompson, CT April 18, 1896 and died April 29, 1919. Aero Squadrons were the designation of the first United States Army aviation units until the end of World War I. These units consisted of combat flying, training, ground support, construction and other components of the Air Service. After World War I ended, the majority of these squadrons were demobilized.

There is one stone in the Porter Cemetery that has been very well described on the Find A Grave website. This is the headstone for Alice Watson. Someone removed this headstone from its Rhode Island location and then relocated it to the Porter Cemetery; a most interesting story.

The Porter 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