Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
2012. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“(Provide at least one paragraph for each area of significance.) Exploration and Settlement: The Old Church-yard Cemetery is the principal surviving remnant containing historical associations with the initial settlement of Baptists into Berkshire County, in what was then known as New Providence, now Cheshire. The settlement of New Providence was an organized move from Rhode Island to Berkshire County in and 1769, after the formation of the Baptist Church.”
Narrative Statement of Significance, National Register nomination for Old Churchyard Cemetery. Machine-read text.
one of 94 National Register listings in Berkshire County · listed in 2012 · category: Site · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Berkshire County.
National Register reference number.12000206- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
18 since 2015
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 18 fires within 5 miles of Old Churchyard Cemetery between
2015 and 2018, burning about 10 acres in total. 2 started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Debris and open burning
7
Equipment and vehicle use
5
Recreation and ceremony
3
Natural
2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,055 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Old Churchyard Cemetery between 1828 and
1975: 555 Plantae, 251 Animalia, 227 Fungi, 11 Protozoa, 8 Unrecorded, 3 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A K Harrison, A Schwartz, A. H. Gustafson and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
18 workings within 5 miles of Old Churchyard Cemetery: 8 past producers, 5 producers, 3 occurrences, 1 prospect.
5 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Limestone, General. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Cheshire, the town this property stands in, in 25 storm reports between 1997 and 2024: 20 thunderstorm wind, 3 flash flood, 2 hail.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
An ice jam broke loose along Kitchen Brook, which overflowed its banks and covered a section of Route 8 with large chunks of ice. Flood waters flowed into a nearby parking lot, covering it in around a foot of water. Route 8 remained closed for around an hour.
Numerous trees were downed along the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail in Cheshire. The trees were downed along the trail between the Cheshire Reservoir and East Main Street. Several of the trees that fell nearly hit a person walking along the trail.
Trees, power poles and wires were downed on East Main Street in Cheshire due to thunderstorm winds. The road was temporarily closed due to the downed trees and wires. A garage was damaged by the downed trees and one of the trees also fell on a home as well.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
11,978 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Statement of significance
Applicable National Register Criteria (Mark "x" in one or more boxes for the criteria qualifying the property for National Register listing.) B Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant andivdual dischatie entity whose components lack Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
(Expires 5/31/2012) Berkshire, MA County and State Areas of Significance (Enter categories from instructions.) ART EXPLORATION and SETTLEMENT SOCIAL HISTORY Period of Significance 1785-1913 Significant Dates 1785-1848 - dates of gravestones 1913 - wall and gate added, stones reset Criteria Considerations (Mark "x" in all the boxes that apply.) Property is: A Owned by a religious institution or used for religious purposes. removed from its original location. C a birthplace or grave. D a cemetery. E a reconstructed building, object, or structure. F a commemorative property. G less than 50 years old or achieving significance within the past 50 years.
Significant Person (Complete only if Criterion B is marked above.) N/A Cultural Affiliation N/A Architect/Builder N/A Period of Significance (justification) The period of significance is 1785 to 1913. The extant gravestones indicate that the cemetery was in active use from 1785 to 1848. This time-frame corresponds to the active settlement of Baptists from Rhode Island, who established the community of New Providence on Stafford Hill. By the 1840s, most of the settlement had moved to adjacent towns such as Cheshire and Adams, or had moved on elsewhere.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 12000206, 34 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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