By Pat Cutter

Cemetery Trustees

If you have driven past the Lakeview/Lakeside cemeteries recently you must have seen the new interior road construction within the cemetery. When the state changed the configuration of Route 11 at Cemetery Corner, land became available to enlarge the cemeteries. We acquired the old Route 11 road bed from the state, and the Thompson family generously donated the remainder.

State law requires that no grave be located closer than 50′ to a public road right-of-way. In order to maximize the number of lots in the new portion of the cemetery, the interior road that had run along the old Route 11 road bed since the new land was added to the cemeteries was relocated into the 50′ foot right-of-way of the new Route 11, leaving the old roadway to become lots and creating a better visual flow within the cemetery.

The relocation of the interior roadway is only part of the work necessary to prepare for new burials. At the 2013 Town Meeting next March, the cemetery trustees will request an appropriation to scarify (dig to a depth of 3′) the old Route 11 road bed in order to allow new graves to be dug by hand. The requested appropriation will include funds to re-grade, loam, and seed the area to blend in with the existing terrain. We ask for your support.

686 New Lots

Prior to this expansion, there were only two lots available in the East Andover cemeteries. When a survey was done to lay out lots in the new area, it found room for 616 lots at 4′ by 10′. Each lot that size will accommodate one full burial or four cremation burials. The survey also laid out 70 lots at 4′ x 4′, each of which will allow two cremation burials. Individual lots may be combined to create family plots.

Deeds to lots are no longer issued in Andover. Instead, the “right to inter” is given to the buyer, meaning that the land continues to be owned by the Town.

In East Andover, the right to inter in the new lots will cost $400 for a one-grave lot and $200 for a cremation lot. Most of the money is assigned to a maintenance fund account so that the interest can be used to maintain the cemeteries.

Interment rights are sold at the office of the Andover Town Administrator and can be purchased on a time payment schedule if necessary. To see a map of the new layout or view lot locations, call Cemetery Trustee Pat Cutter at 735-5628.

In other news of Andover cemeteries, the three gravestones overturned by vandals in the Hobbs Cemetery on Elbow Pond Road have been repaired, as has the stone in Old Center Cemetery felled by the winter.