Historic reenactors helped to educate visitors about Milk Row Cemetery and its many “residents” during the “SomerStreets Monster Mash” event last Sunday. — Photos by Emilia Wisniewski

By Emilia Wisniewski

On the final SomerStreets event of the year, Milk Row Cemetery held their annual Ghosts of Somerville event on October 30.

People of all ages entered the cemetery for a guided tour and were able to interact with historical actors who told the stories of the people who were buried.

The event started in 2006 as a play, but in partnership with SomerStreets Monster Mash in 2009, Ghosts of Somerville became a tour with volunteers as the reenactors, said Somerville Museum President Barbara Magnum.

“To bring more interest to it, we started doing this,” Magnum said. “And we would try to do it around Halloween because there is so much interest in cemeteries at that time.”

Magnum and Brandon Wilson, Executive Director of the Historic Preservation Committee, worked on preserving the old cemetery as many of the gravestones had worn down over the years with broken and dirty marble. Through cleaning, repatching, and molding the stone, the headstones were successfully restored.

Milk Row Cemetery was founded in 1804 and was originally a private burial ground, but friends and neighbors could also be buried there with permission from the land owners.

One of the most prominent landmarks in the cemetery is the Civil War monument in the middle of the grounds. Built in 1863, it is the first monument in the United States to commemorate Civil War soldiers.

“I think we have a lot of really exciting historical sites here in Somerville,” said reenactor Mehitabel Glenhaber. “It’s cool to realize there are so many windows into so many centuries of history right here.”

With nine stations of actors dressed in historic attire and several tour guides, dozens of people got to learn more about the small cemetery that had been there for centuries.

Somerville residents like Andrew Lazara wanted to know the history behind Milk Row through the reenactments.

“I had been interested in learning more about the history because this is a very old cemetery and it’s always locked,” Lazara said. “It was really interesting and I wanted to check out more.”