Thanks to Yarmouth Municipal Television, this program is now available to watch on demand!
Historian Ron Romano joined us on June 25, 2022 to share his extensive knowledge about Maine’s billboard markers. We began the program in the old Meetinghouse on Hillside Street and continued in the cemetery for a walking tour.
An interesting collection of nineteenth-century grave-markers exists in the cemeteries of Maine. Romano calls them “billboard” markers, and the typical ones consist of large signboard-like marble slabs held above ground by granite posts. Slabs are up to seven feet long and can weigh 500 pounds. While period family monuments are more typically found in the vertical forms of columns and obelisks, billboard markers allowed for horizontal memorialization of Maine’s families. Forty-two of these markers have been found in Maine, and Yarmouth is the fortunate home of two, both of which are at the Old Baptist Cemetery.
Ron Romano is a local cemetery historian and author of four cemetery-themed books, including his latest, Curious Gravestones in Northern New England. His recent books focus specifically on Maine’s and New England’s billboard monuments and feature both of those found at the old Baptist Cemetery. He serves on the board of the national Association for Gravestone Studies, he’s designed tours of 14 cemeteries in southern Maine, and he’s a frequent lecturer on the region’s stonecutters, gravestone symbolism, and cemetery landscapes. Romano’s books will be available for sale at the event and are also in stock at Yarmouth History Center’s gift shop.
Yarmouth Historical Society’s lecture series is free and open to all and is sponsored by the Leon and Lisa Gorman Fund.
