ing the first thirty or more years of this settlement, it would be near the meeting-house and minister's house, whether we assume the first meeting-house to have been located east of the Boston road, near the Samuel Packard house as heretofore suggested, or we assume that it stood on the west side of that road south of F. E. Howard's house.

   We fail to find grave-stones prior to 1700, with one exception, and very few prior to 1740, and we are unable to find other record evidence that either of these two places were used for burial; although it is highly probable that they were both burial-places during the first thirty years, and occasionally used for some time afterwards.

   The Boston, Plymouth and Taunton road, through West Bridgewater, laid out by a jury of twelve men, 1668, has always been understood to be the road leading from Mile Brook Bridge, by the old burying-ground, Dwelly Fobes's house, over Town River, by the houses of Benjamin and Francis E. Howard, by the present meeting-house, and by the house of the late Gamaliel Howard, to Sandy Hill, north of the late Jonathan Copeland's house.

   Each of these roads starts from the meeting-house.   The Plymouth and Boston is one road, from the meeting house to Sandy Hill; and the Taunton road runs from the meeting-house to John Haward's, and thence over the river to Mile Brook Bridge (meaning the old tavern house of the first John Howard).   This meeting-house, being the first meeting-house in old Bridgewater, stood on the Boston and Taunton road, through Bridgewater, and probably on the west side of it, between the houses of said Benjamin and Francis E. Howard.

   Grave-yards grow, decay, disappear and are soon forgotten.   Gravestones were expensive and difficult to be obtained.   Native flat stones, set in the ground edgewise, at the head and foot of graves, were sufficient to identify the resting places of friends for the time being, and graves during the memory of man were recognized; but after the lapse of a few generations, and long ago becoming unknown, have been demolished, stones removed and ground levelled and smoothed.   There are but few grave-stones with inscriptions thereon during the first one hundred years after the settlement of Bridgewater.   The earliest stones were generally for young children, and there is much doubt and uncertainty what yard, or in what part of the yard, the first settlers were buried, or when burial-places were first established, who gave the land, or how right of burial was acquired.

   In order to locate and number the gravestones, and to aid in find-