Tours

Schedule

It’s that time of year again for docent-led cemetery tours. 
 
Join chief docent Darlene Casella on a tour of the cemetery from April through November 2024. Her tours provide a history of the cemetery and information on many notables buried there, as well as interesting stories and lively discussions about the cemetery’s residents. She offers tours during the week and on various Saturday mornings.
 
In addition, docent Henry Dove provides Sunday tours which include a history of the cemetery, information on many notables, and related discussions on selected individuals buried there. 
 
There is no charge for these one hour tours, which meet inside the main gate. Please consult this page or Facebook prior to the date of tour for any changes in schedule or cancelations. Heavy or steady rain and storms cancel tours. 
 
In addition to the regularly scheduled tours, private small group tours may be arranged by contacting Darlene at 203-777-3887.
 
Tour maps are also available at the cemetery.
 
 

Darlene Casella’s Tours

Saturday, November 16, at 10:00 am
Saturday, November 30, at 10:00 am
 

Self-guided tours

Amistad Notables Buried in Grove Street Cemetery
Arboretum Tour of the Grove Street Cemetery
Civil War Notables Buried in Grove Street Cemetery
Cradle Graves of the Grove Street Cemetery
History of Grove Street Cemetery

Jack Cunningham tours

Script for Grove Street Cemetery Tour Tape One
Script for Grove Street Cemetery Tour Tape Two
Script for Grove Street Cemetery Tour Tape Three

The accompanying material relates to scientists and engineers buried in the Grove Street Cemetery. It was prepared to be recorded on tape and, with the aid of a portable player, to serve for three self-guided tours, each requiring about thirty minutes time. Actual recording never occurred.
 
The scripts contain only a partial listing of all scientists and engineers in the cemetery. There is, for example, no one who died recently. The date of most recent death is 1976.
 
Individuals are listed accompanied by a brief summary of information about each one. So as to help a stranger find a particular grave, preceding this individual information is a description of where the gave is located, in terms of street and number, and of the type of gravestone.
 
The material was assembled initially following a question from Elona Vaisnys, Editor, Faculty of Engineering. She had found a newspaper story about a civil engineering professor at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. He had his class meet in a local cemetery at the grave of Hardy Cross. Cross was a native of the area who, in the 1930s, devised a numerical procedure for calculating stresses in complicated structures with many interconnected parts. The resulting “Hardy Cross Method” was widely used for structural design in the era before computers. Ms. Vaisnys wondered whether there was anyone in the Grove Street Cemetery at whose gave it might be appropriate for a Yale engineering class to meet. When it turned out that there are a number of possibilities, it was she who proposed tape recording the material.
 
W. Jack Cunningham
April 2003