I’ve been chasing information on John Alexander of Dresden for a number of years now. I kept asking folks about where the meetinghouse burial ground might have been because there was a deed¹ that mentioned it. I assumed that might be where John and his wife, Susannah Reed, were buried. I just kept running into walls but on actual wall in the Pownalborough Courthouse is a map denoting the cemeteries of Dresden.

The first cemetery? The Alexander cemetery supposedly up the road from the Courthouse. But if it’s there, it’s certainly not obvious nor could I find anymore information about it.

Then the Dresden Historical Association contacted the Maine Old Cemetery Assocation asking for assistance with their cemeteries and stating the opening times for the old schoolhouse in Dresden. I popped over there on the next Sunday and was immediately shown a genealogy of the William Alexanders of Harpswell. Wrong I thought!

The real story of the Alexanders of Dresden is still unfolding but in the midst of the conversations that day, a lovely 90ish year old lady arrived. She dove directly into a book on Dresden that is not in print today nor is it or any mention of it findable online. Eleanor Everson is the delightful Dresden historian and she stated there were only 50 copies of that book made at the time. It is a bound book of typewritten pages and there it was, a page about John Alexander’s grave.

The dates were obviously not correct by my research so I returned home to finish that research and confirm what the truth was. John, his wife Susanna and their daughter, Sally Hill, were all buried there – as it turns out on Eleanor’s land!

“This cemetery is located in the pasture of the Richard Paige farm (H. Ellsworth Crocker, Trott, Small back to Alexander) – the south ­portion which is in Dresden. It is located on the top of a ridge -being the first full ridge on that farm as one approaches from the south. At the time of copying (April 8, 1979) there was a cleared path back to the area which lies some distance back from the road. These were the only two stones found at that time. Four field stones are in the area, with the surrounding area seemingly void of stones of this type. Also, several depressions, scattered about in no order, were observed. No apparent fencing or wall.

It is said that the bodies in this plot were moved from the sand bank on the Hathorn/Everson property many years ago. This sand bank is located between the Everson house and the house where the Alexanders lived (house no longer standing.)”

Eleanor said she had tried to read the old tombstones, a difficult task sometimes, but between her info and my research, I was able to piece out the correct birth years and death dates of both John and Susanna.

This tale is most remarkable due to the sheer bits of coincidence – having the right people in the right place at the right time. It’s a lesson in graves/cemeteries in a state that still allows burials on private land and how those graves/cemeteries can and do move.

In my quest to document the Alexanders of Maine, I’ve found numerous 1700s family members who I cannot definitely track back to a specific Alexander parent. John of Dresden is one of those though I believe he might well be the son of Robert and Elizabeth Potter Alexander of Bowdoin. Now I also know the end of his family’s story, a sad tale indeed and a story for another post.