The Cemetery in the Dell

In a quiet hollow just off Woodland Dell Road lies one of Wilbraham’s most enduring historic landscapes. Woodland Dell Cemetery, shaded by mature trees and shaped by gently rolling and uneven terrain, has served the town for more than a century and a half. Often passed without notice, it is a place where Wilbraham’s history is written in stone.

Woodland Dell Cemetery and Merrick Brook in the early 1900s. Old Meeting House Museum

The origins of Woodland Dell Cemetery trace to the mid-nineteenth century, a time when Wilbraham was evolving beyond its earliest settlement patterns. The town’s oldest burying grounds, closely tied to meetinghouses and early neighborhoods, reflected an earlier way of thinking about death and remembrance. By the 1850s, however, a broader cultural shift was underway across New England. Communities were establishing cemeteries not merely as burial places, but as landscapes for reflection, part of the emerging “rural cemetery” movement that emphasized natural beauty, order, and permanence.

The land that would become Woodland Dell was purchased by Robert R. Wright, H. Bridgman Brewer, and John M. Merrick at a cost of eleven hundred dollars. Containing approximately ten and a half acres, the property was deliberately chosen for its natural setting. Nestled within a shallow depression, what earlier generations called “The Dell,” the site embraced its woodland character rather than erasing it. The cemetery’s name reflects this geography, and its winding paths, varied elevations, and mature trees distinguish it from the rigid rows of earlier graveyards.

Just to the south, a brook descends from the mountain, helping to form the natural dell in which the cemetery lies. Although the brook has no officially recorded name, it was long known locally as Merrick Brook, reflecting the fact that much of the surrounding land originally belonged to the Merrick family.

Although the Woodland Dell Cemetery Association was formally organized on February 12, 1858, the first burial occurred several years earlier. Mrs. Louisa W. Wright, the wife of Robert R. Wright, was laid to rest there on December 26, 1851. Her burial marked the beginning of the cemetery’s role in the life of the town. With the formation of the association under the General Statutes, Wilbraham made a deliberate commitment to the cemetery’s long-term care and preservation. A board of nine trustees, elected annually, was charged with overseeing the grounds and the sale of burial lots, an approach that differed from earlier burying grounds, which often relied on informal or family-based maintenance.

Woodland Dell Cemetery in the early 1900s. Old Meeting House Museum

Over time, a stone wall came to define the boundary of Woodland Dell Cemetery. Such walls were common features of nineteenth-century New England cemeteries, serving both to enclose and protect sacred ground while lending a sense of permanence and dignity to the landscape.

No graves of Wilbraham’s earliest settlers are found within the Dell. Instead, the cemetery reflects the town’s later generations. Prominent near the entrance stands the Avery family monument, listing four men named Abraham Avery, whose lives spanned from 1691 to 1893.

The last of these was associated with a Boston firm responsible for printing the 1863 History of Wilbraham, linking the family monument directly to the town’s written historical record.

As Wilbraham grew through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Woodland Dell became one of its principal cemeteries. Here rest generations of families whose names appear throughout town records, farmers who worked the surrounding fields, craftsmen and laborers who supported local enterprise, educators who shaped young minds, and merchants who served a growing community. The cemetery records not only individual lives, but the steady evolution of Wilbraham itself.

Military service is also well represented within the "Dell". Veterans of multiple American conflicts lie buried beneath its trees, their headstones linking this peaceful ground to moments of national crisis and sacrifice. These markers remind visitors that Wilbraham’s citizens, though rooted in a small town, took part in events far larger than themselves.

The stones themselves tell a story of changing customs and sensibilities. Early markers are often modest and restrained, reflecting mid-nineteenth-century values of simplicity and reserve. As decades passed, monuments became larger and more ornate, signaling shifts in memorial traditions and family expression. Together, they form a visual record of how Wilbraham chose to remember its dead over time.

It is worth noting that around 1859, shortly after Woodland Dell’s establishment, a large company of townsmen gathered at Adams Cemetery, the oldest burial ground in Wilbraham, for a day of brush cutting and general improvement. During this effort, several headstones and footstones along the southerly side of the yard were moved a few inches, or even a few feet, to align them. It is tempting to imagine that this work was inspired, at least in part, by comparison with the new cemetery to the north, fresh, orderly, and set within a carefully chosen landscape.

By 1913, 184 burial lots had been sold at Woodland Dell. At that time, the officers of the Woodland Dell Cemetery Association were Chauncey E. Peck, president; Charles N. Mawry, vice-president; Frank A. Gurney, treasurer; and Carrie A. Moody, secretary, individuals entrusted with maintaining the founders’ original vision.

The entrance of Woodland Dell Cemetery. Old Meeting House Museum

Today, Woodland Dell Cemetery remains active and carefully maintained under the stewardship of the Woodland Dell Cemetery Association. It continues to serve the same purpose envisioned more than 160 years ago. Beyond its role as a burial ground, Woodland Dell stands as a place of reflection, a landscape where Wilbraham’s past rests quietly beneath the trees.

To walk its paths is to encounter the town’s history in its most personal form. Familiar names and forgotten ones alike remind us that Wilbraham was shaped not only by prominent figures but by ordinary men and women whose lives, now finished, continue to define the community they left behind.