Dunstan Cemetery in Scarborough, Maine

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Get directions Scarborough, Maine, USA

Coordinates: 43.56723, -70.39159
Cemetery ID:

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About these numbers These percentages indicate the number of Find a Grave memorials that have a grave photo or GPS coordinates. We don't know the total number of burials in a cemetery, so we cannot calculate a percentage of those with memorials, photos or GPS coordinates.

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In 1878, the town of Scarborough paid $100 to the Coolbroth family for a parcel of land that would become Dunstan Cemetery. The following year, the town began selling burial lots for $6. Dunstan was the town's second public cemetery (Blackpoint being the first) but many Scarborough families had traditionally buried their dead on their own property. More than 30 such private family cemeteries were documented in 1871. The establishment of Dunstan Cemetery allowed families to close their private burial lots by moving the deceased to Dunstan. As a result, more than 500 records exist at Dunstan today for people who died before the cemetery was established, and many slate markers from the early 1800s are found throughout the ground's four acres. In Dunstan's first ten years, more than 150 lots were sold; in its first twenty years, the cemetery's footprint was expanded three times. A receiving tomb was constructed in the mid-1880s. For many decades, this tomb served as the storage building for the town's residents who had died during the winter. With the arrival of each year's spring thaw, they were removed and buried in their final resting places. Today this small above-ground structure is used by the town for storage of landscaping equipment and supplies. Stained glass memorial windows honor two men who were important to Dunstan's early development. Dunstan is active today; it's well-maintained by the town and has records for over 2,000 burials.