Southington seeking grant money for cemetery repairs

By Jesse Buchanan Record-Journal staff

SOUTHINGTON – Town of- ficials are looking to secure state money to continue maintaining the Merriman Burying Ground, an old cemetery on Marion Avenue. Local Boy Scouts and the Southington Genealogical Society have cleaned up the cemetery from time to time. Last year, the town got a $3,000 state grant to straighten and repair stones and conduct landscaping work. The town is now looking for a similar amount of state money to continue straightening headstones as well as wash the stones.

Liz Kopec, an Oak Hill Cemetery board member, said the Merriman Burying Ground could use expert work on the headstones that are obscured or leaning. Such work has been done at

Oak Hill, greatly improving the readability of headstones from hundreds of years ago.

“I think that’s what the Merriman cemetery needs,” Kopec said. “Every time I drove by there it was a mess. ”

The most recent is 1887.

See Cemetery, A11