By Carol McCracken
That the Eastern Cemetery, 224-246 Congress Street is Portland’s oldest cemetery?
It was established in 1668 and is registered on the National Register of Historic Places. The oldest headstone is dated 1717. The cemetery bordered the early settlement whose center was on India Street. Many noteworthy citizens are buried here as well as four black American Revolutionary War soldiers. There is a memorial there to Alonzo P. Stinson, the first city volunteer to die in the Civil War which was erected in 1908. Bordering the cemetery on the Mountfort Street side and on the Federal Street side is an impressive granite restraining wall. It was built to continue Federal Street to Mountfort Street and beyond to Adams Street. A portion of Adams Street was eliminated along with other streets in the area to create the Munjoy South housing community in the 1960’s.