Townsend Cemetery

Simcoe Street which leads to Townsend Cemetery was named after a commander of the occupying British forces during the Revolutionary War. Lt. Colonel John Graves Simcoe ordered his troops to cut down the vast apple orchard which once grew here and to rebuild the remains of an old fort which stood on this site. Nothing of the old fort remains, but the hill still holds a special significance to the Townsends; it is one of their family's early graveyards. The cemetery is now owned by the town and is the final resting place of not only members of the Townsend family, but also the Weeks, Butler, Haviland and Stoddard families. John Townsend is believed to have been the first buried here in 1668.…