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All Photos on These Pages �2008 by Paul Stanton Bumpus
Our Plymouth Colony families, as found at Plympton, took up lands in what was at the time western Plymouth in the years around 1680. Members of some of the earliest families to take up land here are found buried in distinct familial groups in the old burial grounds. As one walks through the cemetery today, these very clear groupings of families are immediately noticed. Evidently the cemetery was never given a proper name in the days of its active usage. In early writings it is simply referred to as the old burial grounds at Plympton. Today, Hillcrest cemetery is the name given to the newest section of the cemetery, being divided from the old burial grounds by the main drive one encounters upon entering through the "pearly white gates" (seen in the picture at upper right of this page). To the north of the drive is Hillcrest cemetery, marked by a boulder at front that proclaims Hillcrest Cemetery 1707, and to the south is what I have called "Ye Olde Burial Grounds." I have come to call the cemetery this due to the common usage of the word Ye on the gravestones found here. "So and so died on Ye fifth day of May in Ye xth number year of His/Her age etc." It is written this way on nearly every stone of the time.
As one walks south into the old burial grounds from the main drive, one first encounters our Sampson family. This is the George Sampson family, eldest son of Abraham Samson. George and his wife Elizabeth Sprague are buried here along with their son Benjamin and wife Margaret Parker, and several generations of the descendant families of these Sampsons--brothers Philemon and Thomas, Gideon and Zabdiel Sampson, and George Jr etc. See the Sampson page and the Image map there entailing the main body of Sampson's. George's brother Issac Samson, husband of Lydia Standish and great-grandfather of Plympton's most beloved Deborah, rests at the heart of the cemetery on one of its most prominent spots, along with two of his sons, Jonathan and Josiah. Immediately to the west of the George Sampson family, and towards the main road (Rte 58), one will find some of the Samuel Rickard family and then the Adam Wright family.
Adam Wright is reportedly buried here but his stone is an unimpressive replacement stone evidently placed here by Eugene Wright, later chronicler of the family and author of the interesting works on "The Tales of Old Plympton." Adam's wife Sarah Soule would likely be buried here also but this is not known for certain. Heading down the rows at the very front of the burial grounds, just behind the stone wall which separates the graveyard from Rte 58, one next encounters the extensive Churchill Family of Plympton. Descendants of Immigrant ancestors John and Hannah (Pontus) Churchill, the William Churchills (Sr and Jr) rest here with their Bryant wives, daughter and grand-daughter of John and Sarah (Bonham) Bryant. John and Sarah are here also, along with a large number of Churchill families blending into the Bryants as one proceeds south into the middle of the cemetery. Of course, as Sarah Bonham was the daughter of George and Sarah (Morton) Bonham, all of the Plympton Churchill & Bryant familes are descendants of Plymouth Colony Pilgrim George Morton and his wife Julianna Carpenter. Julianna was one of four daughters of Leiden Separatist, Alexander Carpenter, who married and came to Plymouth Colony. The Bradford family as found at Plympton, descendants of Samuel4 Bradford (John3, William2, William1) are also Carpenter descendants, of course, as Governor William Bradford married Julianna Carpenter's sister, Alice, as his second wife.
Next come The Cushmans. . .
Robert and Thomas Cushman of "The Fortune" (1621), 2nd ship to Plymouth which followed "The Mayflower" (1620) by almost exactly one year, might well have been on the Mayflower if not for father Robert's volunteering to return to England when it was determined that the leaking Speedwell would have to return to England. Robert Cushman was one of the driving forces behind the Separatist "pilgrimage" to the "new" world; certainly he was one of the financial planners of the journey. His son Thomas who came with him would marry Mary Allerton, Mayflower passenger with her parents Isaac and Mary (Norris) Allerton and the last survivor of those who came on the little ship. Thomas Cushman is buired in Burial Hill in PLymouth and a picture of his gravestone can be seen on my Cushman Family page. Thus, all of the Cushman's found at Plympton are Mayflower descendants from, at least, Isaac Allerton. Three of Thomas and Mary's sons are buried in the burial grounds here: Thomas Jr. Elkanah and Isaac. Many of the latter Cushman generations married into other Plympton families that also descend from Mayflower ancestors such as Samuel Fuller, William Bradford, George Soule, Myles Standish and John Alden.
Plymouth Colony Families Found at Plympton
The Edmund Weston Family at Plympton
RELATED PAGES
Lakenham Cemetery Project (just down the road in Carver!)
The Plympton Smallpox Cemeteries
The Cooke Family of Plymouth County
Wright s History of Plympton
Plympton's Plymouth County GenWeb page
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