Spirits Alive Home Page
Become a PHD
Free Educational Opportunity Aids Local History Organizations
Our small community has a plethora of historic sites, groups, and organizations that could not survive without the dedication and selflessness of volunteers. In gratitude for this giving, 8 groups here in Portland have once again joined forces to present the Portland History Docents Program. Greater Portland Landmarks is the leading organization for this, the 17th year of the collaborative, and classes start Thursday, February 9, 2012. In addition to lectures, site-specific training, and a graduation ceremony, participants will enjoy site visits to all partner locations:
- Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad
- Wadsworth-Longfellow House
- Victoria Mansion
- Tate House Museum
- Evergreen Cemetery
- Portland Observatory
- Eastern Cemetery (yay!)
- Fifth Maine Regiment Museum on Peaks Island
All they ask in return is a commitment to volunteer with one of the partner organizations. For details, visit Greater Portland Landmarks or email GPL for more information. You may also call the PHD coordinator, Marjorie Getz, at 774-5561 ext.120.
posted January 5, 2012
Thank You! Walk Among the Shadows: Souls at Sea Was a Success
Hundreds Came Out to Tour at Night
For 5 nights in late October, the cemetery gates were open so that the spirits would tell their tales to the living. Groups of visitors were led through by hooded specters who stopped from time to time for these stories from the dead. Spirits who shared their soulful tales of death and the sea included:
- Captain Jacob Adams
- Anne Mitton Brackett
- Lydia Carver
- Elizabeth Wendell Quincy Clapp
- Hannah Andrews, wife of Benjamin Tappan Chase
- Captain Alexander McClellan
- Anna Dunn Deering Milk
- Captain Lemuel Moody
- Commodore Edward Preble
- Lieutinant Henry Wadsworth
- Mary Stonehouse
Thank you to everyone who came out to support our ongoing efforts to improve the Eastern Cemetery through the warm, the cold, the clear, and even the snow! The funds raised by Spirits Alive during this event will be used to complete projects under the new master plan. We hope this master plan will be approved by the city council in early 2012.
posted November 13, 2011
WALK AMONG THE SHADOWS IV - SOULS AT SEA
October 20-22 and 27-29, 2011
6:30pm – 7:30pm
Evening tours through the cemetery - meet those who perpetually dwell inside the gates and hear their eerie tales. Fun for the whole family! Find out more about these family-friendly tours.
posted October 15, 2011
Last Workday of the Year!
October 15, 2011
9AM – 12PM
It's the last chance you have this season to help out in the cemetery. Saturday morning, we'll be trimming, pruning, and tidying the cemetery in preparation for winter. Please come join us! We have a good time and get dirt under our nails at the same time.
Leana Good-Simpson, Kathleen Carr-Bailey, and Deb Locke Yuck It Up after Trimming Mr. Tree
posted October 5, 2011
Walk Among the Shadows: Souls at Sea
Evening Tours Through the Eastern Cemetery
We are busy planning the 4th year of Walk Among the Shadows and have some tales of the sea, a spooky setting, and actors portraying some very interesting and eerie spirits! Come on out October 20-22 & 27-29 from 6:30pm to 7:30pm and witness the tales of those who reside inside the gates as told by actors from Portland Playback and Acorn Productions. More information on the October tours is available!
We have some super-cool sponsors this year, too! Special thanks to our neighbors Ferdinand, Knit Wit Yarn Shop, and J.Kelley Salon!
posted September 15, 2011
Happy Death Day, Charles Codman
Replacement Headstone for 19th Century Painter
Charles Codman was a landscape artist who lived in Portland until his death. He was discovered by the art critic John Neal after he had come to work in Maine as a sign painter. His work is included in such collections as the Portland Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Farnsworth Art Museum, the Maine State Museum, Bowdoin College Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Boston Anthanaeum. Little is known about his life and his death, but at the bottom of his stone marker is carved, “erected by his friends.” Due to the fragile nature of the original marker, Spirits Alive raised the funds to have the original stone recreated in granite and installed in the same place the original stood. The epitaph says:
CHARLES CODMAN
A Child of Genius,
whose Pencil
has earned for him
a cherished and enduring
Reputation.
died Sept. 11, 1842.
AEt. 41.
Original, 1964 by Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr.; Broken and half-buried, 2008 by Christina White;
Replacement installed, 2009
posted September 11, 2011
September Workday
Come help out your local burying ground
Looking for something interesting to do? A way to help out your community in a fun way? Make your next party conversation interesting, “So I was in the cemetery on Saturday morning....” Take the challenge posed by the government in a pre-911 effort to volunteer! It's another cemetery workday and we can only get things done with lots of volunteers. Please help us:
9am - 12pm
Saturday, September 10
posted August 30, 2011
August Enews Wraps Up Summer
Art & the Elements Tour, Stone Survey, Summer Tours, Walk Among the Shadows, East Deering News
Can summer be almost over? The cemetery has been a busy place in the past few months with tours and survey work going on. We're also happy to report on the work at another Portland cemetery: the East Deering. With Halloween right around the corner, mark your calendars for Walk Among the Shadows!
Unearthing stones, Walk Among the Shadows tours, Joseph Stockbridge
posted August 28, 2011
Enjoying the art & the effects of the
elements at the ECArt & the Elements Tours!
August 20 & September 10 at 1:30pm
350 years of weather and pollution have had an effect on the carved stones of the Eastern Cemetery. Come learn about the geology of the stones as well as the art that was carved on them in this family-friendly tour. Lisa will lead you around the stones and tombs, so wear good shoes! The weather is a bit harsher up on the hill than it is in the rest of town, so wear layers and consider a hat and sunglasses. Arrive at the Dead House inside the Congress Street gates with cash in hand! Adults are $7, students and seniors $4, but children under 12 are free. The tour will be canceled if it is raining.
posted August 11, 2011
Tour the Eastern Cemetery this Summer!
Every Sunday at 1:30pm
Come stroll around the 6-acre site and hear stories of Portland's past while learning about burial customs, mortuary art, and the history of the oldest landscape on the peninsula. Guides will lead you around the stones and tombs, so wear good shoes! The weather is a bit harsher up on the hill than it is in the rest of town, so wear layers and consider a hat and sunglasses. Arrive at the Dead House inside the Congress Street gates with cash in hand! Adults are $7, students and seniors $4, but children under 12 are free. Tours run each Sunday until October. Tours will be canceled if it is raining.
posted August 10, 2011
June Enews
Unearthing History, Tours & Workshops
Summer tours start in July! Find out what's been going on in June: there is more on our stone survey work, overviews and photos of the Oxbow Cemetery Workshop, the Association for Gravestone Studies conference, and the Maine Genealogists day in the cemetery.
Cemetery fun: stone survey, resetting a stone, double-mirror photography technique
posted June 28, 2011
Genealogists Descend on the Cemetery
A Little Stone Survey Work and a Tour
On Saturday, June 4, the Greater Portland Chapter of the Maine Genealogical Society gave up their morning to help us transcribe the information from grave markers for our stone survey project. They learned how to use the mirror technique in the bright sun as well as how to fill out the long form of information for each. After a snack and a gander at the beautiful jewelry by Della Mano Designs, they were given a tour of the grounds in thanks for their good work. They were told about the history of the bone yard, the different types of stones there, the artwork on the stones, and the history of those buried within the gates. It was a great day and we appreciate all of their hard work!
Stone survey work continues all summer on Saturdays from 8AM – 12PM, weather permitting.
Learning the stone mirror technique.
posted June 7, 2011
Help Us Saturday in the Cemetery
June 12 is Our 2nd Workday and Stone Surveying
9:00am – 12:00pm: Gardening
Spirits Alive will gather to trim, tidy, prune and plant. Please join us inside the Congress Street gates. Gardening tools and training will be supplied.
8:00am – 12:00pm: Stone Survey
Also that morning, our stone surveying continues in the back of the cemetery. Tools, stools, pencils and clipboards supplied!
posted June 4, 2011
Girl Scouts, Thomas Paine, Ghost Hunters & Gravestone Studies
A long list of events and happenings in the May Enews
It's spring, and the cemetery is once again awake. We're excited to host the Maine Ghost Hunters, the Greater Portland Genealogical Society, and the Association for Gravestone Studies. Learn more about those goings-ons as well as projects such as fence repair and stone transcription. Thomas Paine, Esquire is our subterranean celebrity of the month.
Fence Repair, Girl Scouts Dedicate Cemetery, Stone Survey
posted May 24, 2011
Discovering the Past in a Colonial Graveyard
Year 4 of our Stone Transcription Project Starts May 14
Saturday, May 14 marks the beginning of the final year for phase 1 of our stone transcription project. We have been working now for 4 years to transcribe information from the surfaces of every stone in the cemetery while making a record of the physical status of the stone. Won't you join us? All you have to do is bring yourself, prepare to get dirt under your nails, wear plenty of layers, and a sport a smile.
Art uses the mirror technique to read an eroded marble stone.
posted May 8, 2011
It's Spring, so Let's Get to Work!
The April Enews is Ready for Your Eyes
The Workdays are starting up again as well as the stone transcription project. Find out all about the tall white obelisk and who is memorialized on it (hint: Reverend William Reese).
Signs of spring: workdays, blooms and stone surveying
posted April 24, 2011
Lecture Series Finale & Anne Storer's Beautiful Headstone
The March issue of eNews is now available!
General Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine, Library of Congress Photograph
The "Death and Survival in the Civil War" lecture series wraps up with a lecture by Margaret Creighton on the 26th and subterranean celebrity of the month Anne Storer is examined.
posted March 13, 2011
Francis Fessenden and Lecture Series Continues
The February issue of eNews is Out
Maine Officers: Burt, Heath & Shepley, Library of Congress
Our "Death and Survival in the Civil War" lecture series as well as subterranean celebrity of the month, Francis Fessenden are what this month's eNews is all about
posted February 20, 2011
Lectures and Frederick Blake
The January issue of eNews is in email boxes now!
Maine Soldiers Pose on Virginia Battlefield, Source: Library of Congress
This month's edition of the eNews (oh, ok, there hasn't been one since October), highlights the upcoming lecture series as well as our subterranean celebrity of the month, Frederick Blake.
posted January 20, 2011
Winter Lecture Series
First Lecture: January 29 at 10am
The first lecture, "The Forest City Regiment: Death, Mourning and Loss," is Saturday, January 29, 2011 at 10:00am and will be given by Kim MacIsaac, Director/Curator of the Fifth Maine Regiment Museum on Peaks Island.
The theme "Death and Survival in the Civil War" was chosen in support of the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War (2011-2015). These lectures will offer insight into this country's greatest national crisis in relation to death and dying. It is estimated that up to 700,000 people, or 2% of the population died in the War Between the States.
This series is supported in part with funding from the Maine Humanities Council. Admission is free, but donations are suggested.
posted January 17, 2011
Buy Art Inspired by the Eastern Cemetery
East End Spirits, Joan Jordan
A collaboration between Spirits Alive and the Society of East End Arts resulted in the event, "Beyond the Gates" in 2007. A collection of artworks inspired by the Eastern Cemetery included this pastel, “East End Spirits,” pictured above. If you want more information, email Joan Jordan about her pastel on paper which is approximately 24x18" and selling for $135.
posted January 17, 2011
*Looking for something posted before January 16, 2011? Check the Spirits Alive Archives.