St. Joseph Cemetery (Manchester, New Hampshire) - Influential Figures

Influential Figures

Throughout its history, Saint Joseph Cemetery has had surprisingly few directors and superintendents. For 70 of the 78 years since 1930, administration of the office and grounds changed hands only three times. The longest serving directors were Richard Hammond, George Francis and Elizabeth Merritt. Francis and Merritt were both influential leaders in the New England Cemetery Association and left their stamp on the advanced design, horticultural variety and carefully maintained condition of the cemetery.

The pastors of the cathedral and the bishops of Manchester have also taken great care to make the cemetery both a place of reverent remembrance and civic pride. Since no one parish in the area has its own cemetery, the clergy and the people of the cathedral have been, in essence, a board of trustees acting on behalf of all the Catholic faithful whose loved ones are interred here, and they have taken this responsibility seriously.

They have had the help of special patrons as well, such as Helen Shaw, who in 1983 donated the funds necessary to erect a new and more comfortable committal chapel in the new cemetery to replace the one erected in 1889. Bishops Ernest Primeau and Leo O’Neil and a half dozen of their brother priests are buried on the grounds of this chapel, just to the south its main entry.

While the renovation of the cemetery was needed to accommodate the widespread use of motor vehicles, the changes were not without controversy. Gravestones, grave boundaries and remains were removed, changed, and altered. The granite markers were piled in a northeast corner of the property during paving. Some markers were re-installed, some continue to be used as landscaping stones. Others were destroyed. In fact, markers for the "Callahan" family plot can be seem lining the road near Boynton Street on Hazen Road. It is a continued source of ill will between parishioners and the church.