The Lincoln Friends Cemetery, or old Quaker Cemetery, is located 2.0 miles north of Lincoln on the right hand side of Quaker Street as you leave Lincoln. It is about 1,000 feet past Purinton Rd W (Isham Hollow Rd on the other side) and is set back several hundred yards from the road, across a field; one must then pass through a stand of trees and brush. The cemetery, not visible in the summer with the leaves, can be spotted with careful looking in the winter months. Visited in @2001, 2003 and 2010.

Notes from "Underhill Society of America; Twenty-Fifth Annual Report" dated May 12, 1917, say:

"Visited Sept. 3, 1912: Quaker Burying Ground, Lincoln, Vt.

"A very old burying ground, containing fence stones, which must be in the 1600s or early 1700s.

"The Quaker Burying Ground is situated on a little knoll, from which on the South you have a fine view of the valley where Lincoln Centre and West Lincoln are situated. Also the the East the Green Mountain range, Mount Abraham "Potato Hill." ears ago the meeting house stood here, but in recent years it has been torn down."

On the Beers Map of 1871 it says:
"Cem. Friends Meeting Ho."
and you can see the position marked on the map, off the road. There is another cemetery noted, "The Oldest Cem in Town" just a bit farther north on Quaker Street near the road (probably Merrill Cemetery); this is NOT the one recorded here.

-----

2010
I was able to spot a few white stones through the trees at about 1.8-1.9 miles up Quaker Road before I came to the mown path through the field (at 2.0 mi)in Aug 2010. I also recorded a GPS reading at the middle of the cemetery:

N 40° 40.308'
W 073° 59.177'
elev 16 ft

The cemetery was pretty overgrown 08/11/2010 with grasses, fern and wild plants so it was hard to see many stones, and more stones seem to have fallen since 2003. It is still a lovely spot. I suspect it is mowed from time to time but the best time to visit is after the grasses have died down, in the winter/very early spring.

Be sure to click the "Click here to View All Images" at the bottom right side of this page to see more photographs and description of how the cemetery location looks from Quaker Street and more details on finding it.

-----

A FEW PERSONS MAY BE LISTED HERE IN ERROR - many listings that were duplicates of Quaker Cemetery, Monkton Ridge (Rotax Road), and some in Ferrisburgh have been moved to respective resting places, but a few names could not be placed and so they are left here until sorted out. It is also possible some may be here and could be found after the overgrowth is cleared or someone has more time to spend than I did that day.

All in all, there are less than 90 stones, some are not listed because they were impossible to read or too covered with summer growth. Again, about half a dozen here listed, are likely not here at all.

Thanks. JHB.

-----

A BIT OF HISTORY

A lot of the persons here would have been members of the Starksborough Meeting, Society of Friends (Quaker) and later transferred to the Meeting in Lincoln when that was begun; the communities being nearby. These weekly meetings reported to a Monthly Meeting in Ferrisburgh, then finally the New York Yearly Meeting which was located in Nine Partners, NY where there was a boarding school for any children who could pay the tuition and wanted to come.

In the late 1840s there was a split (one of many) between the different Societies of Friends, and here in the Starksborough/Lincoln area. Starksborough seemed to have more Wilburite leanings and disliked the teaching of Joseph Gurney. They protested to the New York Yearly Meeting about the Yearly Meeting's promotion of Gurney material, complained of not having a fair hearing at their Monthly Meeting in Ferrisburgh, stated their views about Gurney, and allowed marriages between their group and Wilburite groups which would have been against the rules of the overseers (Ferrisburgh MM and New York YM). A very simple explanation of this (my apologies to more knowledgeable researchers of the Society of Friends who would have the best understanding of these issues) would be that the Wilburites were more personal about their beliefs and did not like to engage with outside anti-slavery and other such groups, or in political actions because by doing so, it often abetted violence and wars. They also highly valued individual spiritual experiences, visions and revelations. Followers of Gurney were more centered on traditional church teachings and were active in prison reform, anti-slavery activities, international peace initiatives, and other forms of social action. Some of these followers were recently from England and had a different perspective than those of Starksborough and Lincoln; for the most part.

The Monthly Meeting at Ferrisburgh was mainly made up of persons who didn't agree with the Wilburite views and tried to change the minds of the people here in Lincoln and Starksborough, and vice versa. There was not 100% agreement and the minority who was comprised of many people from Starksborough, and who attended the Monthly Meetings, became upset and felt they were not heard, so a consensus was not reached. The division increased between the two meetings and Ferrisburgh MM, as the overseer of the area meetings, disowned many from the Starksborough and Lincoln groups, finally shutting down the Starksborough Meeting. At this time, about 1854-1856 and earlier, many families left the area for Mt. Pleasant, Ohio (and nearby areas), Michigan (I am not sure of these communities), Iowa (Hesper on the northern border and other meetings in eastern Iowa, at first, later moving throughout Iowa) and Minnesota (near Hesper, in Mabel and Fillmore County). These families included Taber, Gove, Meader, Worth, Guindon, Hoag, Bull, Varney, and others, and you will find family members out in those areas, though not all were involved in this split between meetings; many were.

Several families remained and the Lincoln group did not fold until about 1905. About this time the cemetery was officially closed as well, since it was attached to the Meetinghouse, and no more burials occurred here except a few members of the Guindon family, related to Purinton and Page.

— JHB