Volunteers helping with restoration of Primrose Cemetery

LACONIA — Volunteers are helping county employees restore Primrose Cemetery, located on the north end of the city, after hearing about its disrepair.

The cemetery, located near Aavid, the thermal division of Boyd Laconia, is uniquely old and showing signs of wear. That began to change Monday morning, with volunteer Chet Spiller operating a excavator with a brush-cutting attachment taking the initial steps toward a much-needed facelift there.

“Jason Drouin Custom Homes volunteered to do some brush clearing,” general contractor Geoff Smith said Monday morning. “That’s what we’re doing today — we’ve got about half of it done, I’d say."

Jason Drouin purchased the building directly adjacent to the cemetery last year, Smith said. After reading about the disrepair of Primrose Cemetery in The Laconia Daily Sun, Drouin reached out to Belknap County Facilities Director Jon Bossey, who is championing restoration efforts. Drouin offered to lend a hand at no cost to the county. 

“We’re neighbors, we own the property in front of the cemetery here,” Smith said. “Just trying to be good neighbors.” 

Once the brush along the perimeter is cleared, the county intends to erect a new fence around the cemetery and to reset gravestones — many of them are worse for the wear, some leaning over to the point of nearly falling.  

Spiller and Mike Larose, friends of Drouin, were working Monday to cut back brush around the perimeter of the cemetery, in which residents of the former Belknap County Farm are interred.

Last year, Bossey told county commissioners he’d become aware of the cemetery on county property, and was working to plan for its restoration. The cemetery was brought to his attention by a group of Belknap County residents, some who’d long-known of its existence, and others who learned about it more recently. That group volunteered to do some of the initial cleanup.

The first cleanup was on Oct. 18, 2023, when county residents Heidi Preuss, Prudy and Warren Veysey and Lois Kessin made initial efforts. 

Now, formal restoration is underway, and workers Monday made an interesting discovery: two additional gravestones, covered by leaves and top soil in an area they were working to clear. Before that discovery, it was apparent there were over 100 graves — the first four rows were inscribed with names and dates, but some 60-odd others are identified only by number. The parcel is a quarter-acre in size, about 40 paces deep and 17 wide. 

Only basic information about Primrose Cemetery is known. There are 42 headstones, located in the older section of the cemetery toward the north, which denote names and dates of death. The first burial in this portion of the graveyard was of Benjamin F. Follins — he died Feb. 13, 1873, at age 68. The last stone was named for Eliza Burleigh, 70, who died Jan. 26, 1892.

Those buried at Primrose were most likely county residents without kin able to claim their remains for private burial. It’s a countywide burial ground, representing numerous municipalities in modern day Belknap. 

In the coming weeks, a black chainlink fence with an opening, but no gate, will be installed at Primrose by Lakes Region Rent-A-Fence, and later the headstones will be relined. Once they’re set, the county hopes to clean them up and erect signage, denoting some of the history.

“Yes, 100%,” Bossey said Monday when asked if the project is expected to conclude this year, noting it should be squared-away by the end of summer. There’s $11,000 in the facilities budget for the project.

“It feels great,” Bossey said. “It’s definitely something the county needs to maintain.”

Moving forward, it looks like those at rest at Primrose will be well taken care of.