08/08/2026
August 8, 2026:
An Update Regarding Old Plainfield Burying Ground’s National Register of Historic Places Nomination and a Request for Your Help
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For nearly five years now, efforts have pressed on to ensure that Old Plainfield Burying Ground receives the attention and extensive report on why that site is so exceptional not only for the local history archived there.
Have you visited the interactive digital map we were able to produce a few years ago thanks to key fiscal support awarded by Connecticut Humanities?
If you haven’t, please check it out here: https://oldplainfield.org/explore/
As the world shall soon see when the official National Register of Historic Places nomination report is published, the mission which began five years ago when a delegation of experts from Connecticut’s State Historic Preservation Office conducted a site survey.
Taking all landscape contours in firsthand from the funerary art and array of diverse Plainfield personalities stretching across 300 years of burial history, the space has gotten their attention and the SHPO team continue to be pivotal sources of guidance and decision-makers for this whole National Register process.
We did secure a substantial SHPO grant award from that office, because preparing a nomination requires a content expert who can research and make the case for why a historic site qualifies based on a handful of National Park Service criteria. To clarify, the nomination is going to the NPS but the process will list it on Connecticut’s State Register of Historic Places, too!
Now, this post is an interim update and the final nomination will be released sometime early on during this fall. But we need to finish paying the outstanding consulting firm we did ultimately select after determining some other options weren’t the best for for what we hoped to find in a working relationship.
The process of accepting bids and choosing the right consultant was filled with challenges which included — but wasn’t limited to — one consulting firm which sent requests to be paid thousands of dollars after a few weeks of online research and never visiting the site at all.
That individual subsequently refused to return the upfront retainer fee after we terminated the contract for noncompliance; our technical advisors also relayed how they were skeptical about that consultant getting the nomination process done with the high bar that SHPO has developed to ensure that every proposed property undergoes a rigorous evaluation and eligibility review.
Now, we were short $3,500 from the original $14,000 consultant grant award, thanks to the SHPO and governing board members. Without their generosity and respect for our community’s cultural history, this effort never would have gotten off the ground in the first place. Going through a formal procurement process we designed and implemented for the sake of objectivity and equity, was filled with learning curves.
Fortunately, a supplemental grant was requested and approved for $3,000 which was a tough sell as it was because we’d already gotten the $14,000 award.
That originally left us $500 short but thanks to some private outreach, $350 has been raised.
We have $150 more to raise so we can pay our final invoice to the phenomenal consultant who has an incredible track record of in-depth scholarly expertise and an arsenal of content experts represented across its expansive staff team. I was impressed by one major milestone which was successfully spearheading a National Register nomination for Malcolm X’s Boston residence.
Indeed, we are so blessed for our path to converge after such a bumpy road along the way and got to collaborate with this fine team of client-centered professionals at the Public Archaeological Laboratory!
After exhausting private channels, any persisting hesitation about sharing this dilemma is now overshadowed by the high urgency in getting this last payment settled. The team at PAL has put in countess hours for Old Plainfield Burying Ground over two years now since we first met during that initial bidding process and interview.
Most fortuitous for me to note in the beginning, was how they dispatched a two-person away team to study and photograph the site for an entire day as a their very first step in that whole process!
These highly skilled historians have gone through multiple drafts and incorporated feedback along the way. The result is a robust, insightful and authoritative historical record which will constitute an enduring record of that space and what lessons that its distinctive elements carry on for all of us today.
We are so indebted to PAL which will in the coming months also provide a formal, bound ceremonial version of this nomination document which shall remain in perpetuity at the Town Clerk’s custody among so many other notable document treasures across the archives. A digital copy will be available and shared online, too. Thank you, Diane Talbot, for all that you do!
If you can please consider donating any amount so that we can raise the $150 soon — ideally within the coming week —please feel free to send a check to Plainfield Grave Guardians, PO Box 403, Danielson, CT 06239.
Please reach out with any questions using the private FB message option or feel free to leave comment here! If you don’t want to mail a donation, then I can meet you in person at your convenience or accommodate whatever donation format is best for you.
Because the Plainfield Grave Guardians are a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, your donation is tax-deductible and you’ll receive a written receipt attesting to that.
Again, this is a very urgent outreach with the focused goal to raise $150. When that is raised, I’ll post an update here noting that we met that goal.
While donations are always appreciated in light of other ongoing liabilities which allow our public education mission to endure, it’s not typically what we do on here, is send out donation requests.
Plus, the mistake of hiring that consultant firm was embarrassing, especially after receiving an outright refusal to return the retainer after SHPO had bluntly said that what was submitted, was not even usable to support the National Register nomination in any way.
Your support to help raise this last $150 will bring much-needed closure for what has been a very long road to manifest this dream the Grave Guardians have always had as a gift for this community — taking this giant leap forward for Old Plainfield Burying Ground to regain some of its luster and a profound respect too long overdue.
A lot has been happening behind the scenes and what you longtime followers may have assumed to be some sort of organizational dormancy, has just been a waiting room so the wheels of progress can present what we’ve been striving so hard to create for you all.
Soon, you shall see that it really was worth the wait. Thank you in advance for your interest!
Feel free to share this! If it’s not coming as shareable in your end then try taking a couple screenshots of this post or feel free to just copy and paste.
🙏😎
