Crouseville Cemetery, Maine

There are 5 cemetaries in Crouseville, which is an unincorporated town within the town of Washburn in Aroostoock County, Maine. The population of all of Washburn in 1,500, so fewer still in Crouseville, and clearly more dead people than alive there as well. In 1800 the future Crouseville, Maine, did not have any particular name. In 1826 it was first surveyed by Joseph Norris and the early settlers living along the Aroostook River could not be certain if they lived in New Brunswick, a North American British Colony, or the United States. In 1839, the United States formed Aroostook County. This was an effort by the United States to lay claim to the area. In 1842, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty firmly established the area as United States territory, yet some townships in Maine were administratively part of Massachusetts, the mother state. My great grandmother was a Crouse, and the cemetery has more than its share of Crouse's buried there, but so too are there Woodman's. It sits atop a hill (there is another cemetery across the street, so this is clearly a better spot, or if not that then at least the better view. When my brother was buried there in 1969 you could see all the way to the river, but the pine trees have grown up and obstructed the view, but it is a beautiful location, none-the-less. It is well-tended and, something that is both important to Crouseville and important to my dad--there is a potato field that borders the cemetery just a stone's throw from our family plot. According to my cousin, it is farmed by a 2nd or 3rd cousin.