Project seeks truth about Indian graves

Southborough hopes to answer a centuries-old question: Is there a mass grave of Native Americans in the town's Old Burial Ground?

To put the legend about the cemetery off Common Street to the test, the town is depending on a device that looks like a lawn mover but is equipped with ground - penetrating radar.

``The rumor is that it was an Indian burial ground before Southborough and apparently a number of Indians who died from influenza are buried in the southeast corner," said David Falconi , president of the town's Historical Society and a member of its Historical Commission, which is paying for the project. ``We would love to honor them and let people know that they are here."

The Nipmuck tribe inhabited what became Southborough and had a burial ground there, according to ``Fences of Stone," a town history by resident Nick Noble that was published in 1990. A map showing the town from 1720 to 1800 depicts the cemetery as a burial site used by the Nipmucks in the 1600s. The burial site and a Nipmuck village are bisected on the map by the Old Nipmuck Indian Trail, which is now Route 85.

If the survey discovers unrecorded remains more than 100 years old, archeologists with the Massachusetts Historical Commission would investigate the site, commission spokesman Brian McNiff said.

``If they determine it's a Native American site , the Commission of Indian Affairs would be notified," McNiff said. ``They would monitor the investigation."

He said it was premature to speculate what further action would be taken.

The town's Historical Commission voted this month to award Russell Kempton, with the New England Geophysical surveying company, almost $3,000 to do the examination, Falconi said. The commission will tap its fiscal 2006 and 2007 budgets to pay for the work, which has not been scheduled.

Besides aiding historical research, New England Geophysical uses its ground-penetrating radar equipment to locate underground utility lines and hazardous waste tanks.

The radar sends a pulse of high-frequency electromagnetic energy as far as 80 feet into the ground. The pulse is reflected back and shown on a screen attached to the device, according to a description on the company's web site. The graves would appear in the form of different colored waves.

``We're not seeing bodies," Falconi said. ``The radar is seeing that the ground has been disturbed and the way the ground has settled."

Local historians hope the radar will help them accurately count the number of Southborough residents buried at the cemetery. There are 319 stone markers, but town records show 819 definite burials and 307 possible burials.

``Where are the other 500-800 people buried? This should be able to tell us," Falconi said. ``We've done everything we can above ground; the stones have been inventoried and mapped. This will give us a much better record of what's there."

One possible reason for the large number of unmarked graves is the Hurricane of 1938, which uprooted several trees from the cemetery and destroyed dozens of stone markers, Falconi said.

Squeezed by the Great Depression, the town lacked the money at the time to replace the destroyed markers.

The 3-acre graveyard between the Pilgrim Church and the library was turned into the town's official burying ground just months after Southborough separated from Marlborough and incorporated as its own town in 1727, according to a history of the burial ground compiled by the Historical Society.

The next year, Margaret Newton was recorded as the first Southborough resident to be buried there; the earliest stone marker dates to 1730. By 1842, all of the plots were either used or reserved, and the Southborough Rural Cemetery was opened south on Route 85.

The last internment in the Old Burial Ground was in 1895.

The Historical Society will provide Kempton with a 1970s map of the burial ground, Falconi said.

Volunteers from the Historical Society will add to the map when new graves are found and metal stakes will be pounded into the ground just beneath the surface to serve as a permanent marker, he said.

``We have been fantasizing about this for years," said Falconi, who proposed the survey to the commission. ``I'm really excited about it."

Jennifer Rosinski can be reached at jrosinski@globe.com.