FLORIDA -- As I pondered my last Grave Matters column of the year, I found it only appropriate to bridge my time between my Advocate summer writing season with my return to my Drury High School classroom by finding the grave of Nathan Drury, founder of DHS.
Using the Berkshire Family History Association computerized Berkshire Index search tool in the local history department at the Berkshire Athenaeum in Pittsfield, I searched for both Nathan and his wife, Freelove, who are buried in the small Drury graveyard located on what was once their property in Florida.

By JUDITH FAIRWEATHER
LANESBOROUGH -- While serving as assistant editor of The Advocate, I traveled two routes to get to the North Adams office from my Pittsfield home, one of which took me up Route 7 to Summer Street, from where I hopped onto Old Cheshire Road and then to Route 8.
This route took me right past an old cemetery in Lanesborough. Every time I went by, I wondered about the old stones I saw and about the stories of the people buried there. Thus, the Center Cemetery, as it is now called, was really the impetus for the birth of this Grave Matters column.
I figured it was finally time to investigate the source of my obsession, so I trekked to the local history department of the Berkshire Athenaeum with my trusty Berkshire Family History Association "A Guide to Berkshire County Cemeteries" in hand. I had the good fortune to encounter Rick Leab behind the desk there. When I explained I needed information on Center Cemetery, he replied that he had several family members buried there. A cacophony of joyous bells broke out in my head: Here was someone I could ask firsthand about the cemetery's residents.

By JUDITH FAIRWEATHER
CHARLEMONT -- Last fall, I received an e-mail from Bea DaSilva inquiring whether my invitations to accompany me on my cemetery quests were literal or not. She had no idea she was someone from my long-ago past, having served as an English teacher at both my junior high (Crosby) and my high school (Taconic).
Thus, I had the chance to reminisce with her about some former teachers on a recent drive over the Mohawk Trail to Charlemont. How lovely. Our mission was to find a graveyard recommended by Advocate Editor Rebecca Dravis, although that was all I knew about it.
But we weren't going to have to investigate this cemetery on our own. We met Joanne MacLean, director of the Charlemont Historical Society Museum, who, even though an eighth-generation resident, had never visited this particular site. We headed to the Zoar Outdoor property right on Route 2, scrambling up a small hill to reach the gravesite of Capt. Rice, his family and Phineas Arms. Rice and Arms were killed in an attack by Native Americans on June 11, 1755, on the site.

HINSDALE -- On a recent sultry day, I was given a private tour of the Morey Cemetery by The Advocate's own Kelly Bevan, features editor.
Accompanied by her daughter, McKenna, and black Lab, Kenai, we braved the dinner-plate-sized horse flies in our three-hour hike to the family plot off the end of New Windsor Road. Well, OK, it wasn't three hours -- more like 20 to 30 minutes -- one way -- but the bugs and humidity made every rock-strewn step along the forest trail feel like a thousand. The promise of a cold drink on Kelly's oasis of a front porch, however, kept pushing us toward our goal.

By JUDITH FAIRWEATHER
LANESBOROUGH -- Now that I have successfully navigated my first year in a classroom after a nine-year absence, it's time to pack away my teacher hat along with my lesson plans and dig out my Advocate reporter hat and notebook.
Of course, the first thing on my agenda was the resurrection of my "Grave Matters" column. How lovely it was to be skulking around a graveyard again, trying to decipher vanishing inscriptions from ancient marble headstones while trying to make connections or draw conclusions about the people buried there.
My first stop this summer was at the Pettibone Cemetery on Old Cheshire Road, right on the Lanesborough/Cheshire line. I chose that one because my dad has driven by it for years and wanted to know about it. Interestingly, it's also one of the two routes I take to get to Drury, yet I never even noticed it until I went searching for it last week.
It is a small cemetery, with maybe 30 or so stones, tops. As always, the stones that drew me were those of the children. The Porter family experienced great tragedy in a short period of time. Sumner Porter, son of Philip and Martha Porter, died Oct. 18, 1832, at 18 months old. In 1832 there was a massive cholera outbreak that started in North America in Montreal in June and quickly worked its way down to New York. Was Sumner a cholera victim, perhaps?

By JUDITH FAIRWEATHER
NEW LEBANON, N.Y. - In Berkshire County, when the term Shakers is used, I would say it was a safe bet that most people would picture Hancock Shaker Village.
But Hancock was not the only local Shaker community. In fact, the Mount Lebanon home of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing was the largest and most successful communal utopian society for 160 years, from 1787 to 1947. As with other Shaker communities, the village was divided into several unique "family" groupings, variously named the Church Family, the North Family, the South Family and so on.
Currently, Darrow School is housed on the Church and Center family properties; the North Family acreage, however, was purchased by the Shaker Museum and Library in 2004 as the future home of the museum.
The museum is being relocated there from its current Old Chatham site bit by bit, according to Jerry Grant, the museum's director of research and library services. In order to give the public a glimpse into the life of the Mount Lebanon Shakers, this summer the museum held a series of "Talk and Walk" lecture tours. The last in the series will be held Saturday, Oct. 17, at 10 a.m.

Editor's note: This is the fifth in a summer-long series in which Advocate Assistant Editor Judith Fairweather visits old cemeteries to try to dig up interesting tidbits of local history. Read all of her columns at blogtheberkshires.com.

By Judith Fairweather
STOCKBRIDGE - When I made the decision to visit the Stockbridge Cemetery, I knew it would have to be a different type of column. I was going to need some serious experts.
So I turned to the Trustees of Reservations, the main office of which is on Sergeant Street just behind the Mission House. I had a specific agenda in mind. I wanted to visit the grave of Mum Bett, who came to be known as Elizabeth Freeman, in advance of the celebration of the 228th anniversary of her court victory on Aug. 21, 1781, which established an important precedent that would lead to the abolishment of slavery in Massachusetts. Since 2006, the Trustees have celebrated that event with a program at the home of her once-master, Col. John Ashley, in Sheffield. This year's event will be held Friday, Aug. 21, with an open house at noon and the program at 2 p.m.

By JUDITH FAIRWEATHER
EGREMONT -- The south Berkshire town of Egremont was incorporated on Feb. 13, 1760, from the lands west of the North Parish of Sheffield. However, many of the early records have been lost, destroyed in a fire somewhere around the year 1839.
But the people of Egremont were determined not to let their history slip away. A book was created by Mary L. and Diane Fratalone with an inventory of each graveyard and its occupants. The book is undated, but proved to be a major blessing as I was searching for stories for this column.
I focused on the Mount Everett Cemetery, a tiny and very old graveyard conveniently located right next door to the Egremont Free Library on Button Ball Lane. The Fratalones included with each entry the major families buried in the cemetery and a little bit about them. The rest of the inhabitants are listed alphabetically, by family, with their birth date, date of death and age.

PITTSFIELD - Growing up on Roberta Road meant that I traveled West Street often, including to and from various events at Berkshire Community College. However, clearly my powers of observation are not that good.
Each time I drove out to BCC and back, I had to drive right past West Part Cemetery. Yet I never knew it existed until recently, when I met some extremely helpful women in the local history department at the Berkshire Athenaeum.
After my first Grave Matters column, I realized this topic was going to require more legwork than I had initially suspected. Thus, I made a reconnaissance trip to the library. My approach this time was going to be quite different. I intended to find my interesting people and then go search out their stones.

Last year, I spent my summer visiting all the Berkshire County tourist spots I had never seen, despite living here for 45 years.
This year, I was dying to delve deeper into some more local history, so I thought I would try and unearth some by visiting a few of the old and very picturesque cemeteries I have passed by on my travels across the county. (Don't worry. I think I've exhausted my need for bad puns now.)
But this is an area in which I have absolutely zero background, so I thought I would turn to someone who is in fact a cemetery expert - and also likes bad puns as well as I do. When it's North County cemeteries you want to know about, it's Paul Marino you call upon.