This old cemetery is CLOSED to new burials and has been for over 70 years. The last ten burials were between 1872 and 1941. The majority of Amherst burials since about the 1850s have been at Meadow View Cemetery on the west side of the village. Other Amherst cemeteries are Cricket Corner Cemetery, Chestnut Hill Cemetery, Saint Patrick's Cemetery, and an old Poor Farm Cemetery that has no headstones.

Old or alternate names for this cemetery: Old Cemetery; Town Cemetery; Public Burying Ground; Center Cemetery

For more information about people from Amherst, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire please visit the web site of the Historical Society of Amherst, NH at www.hsanh.org.

Transcriptions used for this database:

New England Historic & Genealogical Society, R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, "Burial Grounds of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire : Amherst, yard near old court house" by John Elliot Bowman, manuscript, 1922. Includes index, handwritten transcription of gravestones. (Mss C 1542) 74 pages.

Colonial Gravestone Inscriptions in the State of New Hampshire, by Mrs. Charles C. Goss, published by The Historic Activities Committee of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in The State of New Hampshire from Collections made by Committees from 1913 to 1942. (Dover, N.H.: 1942). ["Amherst Center Cemetery," pgs 11-15, selected stones)

As a Bicentennial project in 1975-76 the headstones in this cemetery were numbered & transcribed by a committee headed by Mrs. Rosamond Buchanan. The original Numerical Card File is located in the Historical Society of Amherst Chapel Museum. The numbers correspond to the map drawn by Rosamond Buchanan, copyright 1979. Copies of this map are located in the Amherst Town Hall, Amherst Town Library & Chapel Museum.

Using Mrs. Buchanan's map & numbering system, Charles L. Bacon compiled an Alphabetical Index in January 1990. He included remarks that help identify the families of many of the persons listed. Copies of this index are located at the Amherst Town Library and Historical Society of Amherst, New Hampshire.

To further identify families it is advisable to use this cemetery survey in conjunction with the book by Daniel F. Secomb, History of the Town of Amherst, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire (Concord, NH: Evans, Sleeper, & Woodbury, 1883).