WELLS — For several years, the town of Wells has been working to create a more fitting final resting place for some of its earliest settlers. 

With taxpayer money and contributions from many volunteers, landscaping has been done, a fence erected and other beautification efforts have been completed at Buffam Hill Cemetery, one of the town’s oldest — if not the oldest — cemetery.

Additional work conducted at the cemetery includes moving the grave stones from their original location to “much closer to where we believe the internments took place,” said Douglas Bibber, who was a member of a town committee formed to work on the project. The area has been been loamed, curbing has been added and a rock wall was constructed in front. Irrigation, hydroseeding and etching the rock wall are still to go.

“The front entranceway looks beautiful,” said Bibber. “It’s in keeping in taste with the date of the cemetery.”

Prior to December 2014, when the town received a conservation easement for the approximately 10,000-square-foot parcel on U.S. Route 1, Wells didn’t have the right to care for the graveyard, as the area is on privately owned land — a senior housing development is located behind it.

After the easement was granted, a Wells Cemetery Committee was formed in spring 2015. During the previous year’s June town meeting, voters approved using $60,000 from the community’s coffers on the project, as the disheveled state of the burial site was a source of concern for some residents, and had been since at least the 1940s, when development on the parcel that was once a field occurred.

Some believe that during construction of the various buildings, grave markers were moved and buildings were erected on top of the graves.

About 1947-49, two cement buildings were built on the parcel, according to town records. At the time, there were no laws to protect the area, said Code Enforcement Officer Jodine Adams in an earlier interview. “The laws came in shortly after, but the damage was done.”

In 1949  and again in 1952, voters tried to provide for upkeep of the lot, but no action was taken by town officials. Town records show that over the years town officials looked into what legal recourse the town had to require that the cemetery be properly maintained.

Finally, when the town received notification of foreclosure on the property in 2011 — which housed Torches restaurant — it jumped at the opportunity to negotiate a easement on the portion of the land where the graves are located with Optima Bank of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which had acquired the property.

“We took it as our opportunity to do something,” said Adams, and an easement was granted for the cemetery in 2014.

While Town Historian Hope Shelley can’t confirm who is buried in the historic graveyard — “We’ll never know for sure,” she said in a past interview. However, she has her suspicions.

She said she believes Edmund Littlefield’s body is among the graves. Littlefield came to the area in 1641, she said, even before the town became incorporated in 1653. Shelley said she believes Littlefield is there because “he lived right across the creek” from the cemetery; but if he is there nothing marks his grave.

Edmund’s grandson Josiah Littlefield is confirmed to be one of those buried at Buffam Hill. The earliest grave stone found there belongs to him, the date of death listed on the tomb is 1713 (although records show his death actually occurred in 1712), said Shelley.

In addition to the stone for Josiah Littlefield, other cemetery stones, as documented in the 1920s and 1930s — according to Shelley’s book “My Name is Wells” – belong to Capt. William Cole and his wife Sarah, with death dates of death Sept. 17, 1847 and April 2, 1825, respectively; Lt. Jonathan Hammond, date of death Sept. 17, 1717, his two wives and son Jonathan; and Benjamin Treadwell, date of death Aug. 8, 1815.

Rumors of a mass grave of Native Americans killed during battles with white settlers were dispelled by ground-penetrating radar conducted on the site in 2014 that found no evidence of such a grave, said Shelley. Another rumor that Revolutionary War veterans were buried on the site is also false, she said.

Now that there are just a few final touches are left, Bibber said he’s please with the outcome. Prior to the recent work Buffam Hill Cemetery was “essentially desecrated,” he said. Now, “it’s been brought back and is in keeping with the dignity of the site.”

— Associate Editor Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 324, or dmendros@journaltribune.com.