Cedar Brook Burial Ground - a natural burial option

Cedar Brook Burial Ground, Inc. Mission Statement

2010-03-08T17:22:00.001-05:00

Insure the respectful treatment of the deceased and the family.

Preserve the area in its natural state.

Follow the tenets of green burial practices along with a sustainable forestry policy.

Cedar Brook Burial Ground is open year round.

Planning a funeral - others . . . or yours

2010-03-08T09:36:00.001-05:00

Where does one start? What questions need to be answered? These books will help start the conversation and answer many of your questions.

From the authors of Grave Expectations, Carmen Flowers and Sue Bailey:

"Life is such a rich, complicated, joyous, mysterious wild ride. Everyone has stories to tell and lessons to pass on, and what better way to do that than when you're alive? It was your life; your funeral is the one time you can do and say absolutely whatever you want.

As of this writing, there is no alternative to dying. Since there's no getting out of it, why not go ahead and plan your fantasy going "away" party?"

Carmen Flowers and Sue Bailey will be the guest speakers at the Annual Meeting on 10/31/2009 of the Consumers Funeral Alliance of Maine at The Highlands in Topsham, Maine. The meeting is open to the public at a cost of $10/person.

There will be an outstanding panel of people who have done home funerals and natural burials. They will share their stories and answer questions. Resources available include information about Maine's two natural cemeteries and Chuck Lakin's display of his alternative wood caskets. Peter McHugh of Cedar Brook Burial Ground will be available to answer questions.

Grave Matters by Mark Harris is also an excellent source of information.

"Whatever Happened to ‘Dust to Dust’?
You Can Still Find It in Green Burial.

By the time Nate Fisher was laid to rest in a woodland grave sans coffin in the final season of Six Feet Under, Americans all across the country were starting to look outside the box when death came calling.

Grave Matters follows a dozen such families who found in “green” burial a more natural, more economic and ultimately more meaningful alternative to the tired and toxic send-off on offer at the local funeral parlor."

Articles & interviews on green burial

2009-12-31T17:05:00.010-05:00

Green Burial Movement Spreads to the Southwest

A green burial site is planned for this area in the Galisteo Basin Preserve near Santa Fe, N.M. Unlike conventional cemeteries, the landscape will not change after bodies are buried here.

Burials and Cemeteries Go Green

Ginny Boll loves life. The 78-year-old former nun operates a dog-grooming business in Wisconsin in a small shed near her home on her woodland property. When she dies, Boll says she wants her friends to hold a party to celebrate her life and then to bury her simply.

Land owner Calls On Death To Save Her Far

Joan Graham, 80, owns a horse farm in the small town of Metamora, north of Detroit.

"I just like the earth," she said. "I like the smell of it, and I like green, and I like trees."

New England Green Burial Society

2009-11-16T10:19:00.003-05:00

"New England Green Burial Society offers resources, guidance, coordination and direction for those interested in green burial."

Click here for more information about the New England Green Burial Society

DOWN TO EARTH

2009-08-31T14:38:00.006-04:00

Green cemeteries take a final step back to nature
By JOHN RICHARDSON, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald - July 19, 2008

After a lifetime of recycling, composting, turning down the thermostat and trying to eat local organic food, some people might not want to leave their bodies to be filled with a chemical preservative and buried in steel and concrete, or even cremated in a gas-fired furnace.

Now they have a couple more options.

Maine's two green cemeteries -- natural burial grounds that don't allow embalming or steel caskets -- are open for business. And they're getting some.

For the rest of the story

Entering Cedar Brook Burial Grounds

2009-07-05T09:13:00.006-04:00

Vistors are welcome to tour the grounds.

For a tour of the grounds or a brochure, call Peter McHugh at 207.637.2085, email at a.green.cemetery@gmail.com or request information by mail: Cedar Brook Burial Ground, 175 Boothby Rd, Limington, ME 04049-3019

Global warming, going green

2009-06-30T09:33:00.000-04:00

Natural Burial Grounds Becoming Popular

LIMINGTON (NEWS CENTER) -- With all the talk about global warming, going green has become a way of life for many of us. Now, people in Maine can even go "out" green -- and spend eternity in a natural resting place.

For complete article & video interview with Peter McHugh

Work continues at the Joshua Small Cemetery

2009-06-29T20:40:00.000-04:00

The wonderful fieldstone wall surrounding the cemetery is being repaired. Some of the stones have, over time, dropped from the wall and are being carefully fitted back in place. There is ongoing maintenance to the grounds within and around the cemtery.

The cemetery is available to visitors to Cedar Brook Burial Ground.

An ongoing discussion

2009-04-29T16:23:00.008-04:00

One of our readers, Edie Thomas, sent this thoughtful response to comments made by Thomas Friese.

I happened to come across a comment from Thomas Friese on your website regarding an article on March 8th called Crossings: Caring for our own at death. The comment was not too inappropriate, however, there are some comments that he made that I do not agree with and feel should not be on your site.

One comment is regarding land consumption and that green burials utilize too much valuable land space. He also discusses at length his issue with not marking the burial sites with any type of marker. He then states that determining a resolution to the land use and marker issue is something that needs to be addressed promptly. He includes his website address, which is to a website where you have to put in your personal information before you can even see any of his resolutions to the issues he brings up.

I understand his concern with these issues, but how he states that environmentalists are addressing the lands needs before the individual is a little critical and unnecessary. My opinion has always been that with the rate of growth we are seeing, there will be no green space left except graveyards and golf courses. With green burials, the graveyard has created a new image where people will want to go, and you do not necessarily have to go a "marker" that "belongs" to your family member. Just being in a natural setting will remind you of what your family member felt was important and help bring you closer to their memory.

I understand that some individuals will have a difficult time coming to terms with a newer way of thinking in regards to burial traditions. I also understand that green burials will grow and evolve with future needs. I don't understand how green burials that create open space are any different in terms of land use then graveyards with granite markers. Is he proposing that we utilize some form of the Tibetan sky burial for our future burial needs?

. . . I was mostly upset with the fact that he put (in) his website (address) and then when you look it up, you cannot find any information that he wants to discuss until you sign up. I actually did sign up and I still have not gotten my password sent to me. I understand that I should probably be directing my frustration at him. I just wanted to make you aware of his comments.

Sincerely,
Edie Thomas

Thank you, Ms. Thomas for granting permission to post your comments.

Remaining Eco-Friendly, Even After Death

2009-04-22T18:45:00.003-04:00

By Ann-Elise Henzl
April 22, 2009 | WUWM | Milwaukee, WI

"Green burial is essentially the way most of humanity has cared for its dead for thousands of years."

Joe Sehee started and heads the Green Burial Council, a national group that promotes the practice.

"Returning to the earth simply, without a metal casket, without a concrete burial vault, without formaldehyde-based embalming. It's just ashes-to-ashes, dust-to-dust burial," Sehee says.

Click here for complete article, then click on 'enter site', top right

Another approach from New Zealand

2009-04-15T12:49:00.002-04:00

A wine rack & shelf conversion kit

This one isn't for everyone! But if contemporary furniture design and maximising value for money is your thing, you might like to consider getting a few years of mileage from your casket with a furniture pre-use conversion.

Holds 32 bottles of wine and an assortment of books and nick-nacks with style. The curved sides make an interesting contrast to ordinary square bookshelves, and the handles add visual interest (and are great for moving it around!).

From Final Furniture Limited

Bio-degradable caskets

2009-04-11T12:34:00.005-04:00

Final Footprint is Jane Hillhouse’s company where she has worked for the past 10 years to “Green” the Burial Industry. She is offering the options of bio-degradable lines of caskets, home funeral consulting, natural burial sites and helping people to reduce their footprint back to the earth. Some people may wonder why they want to look at natural burials. With caskets made of pine or cardboard, the final goodbye can become a family farewell and healing experience. Taking turns painting or writing thoughts on these alternative eco- coffins are wonderful ways of expressing love and easing grief. The Ecoffins, a Fair-Trade Company, made in the USA offers carbon neutral coffins made from banana sheaf, bamboo, or pandamas . These beautiful, ecologically sensitive ways of burial will add to our choices and create a uniquely different Final Footprint.

Final Footprint from Kathy & Michael Rain on Vimeo.

Final Footprint.com

A Family Undertaking

2009-03-09T08:54:00.002-04:00

What is old is often new again. Elizabeth Westrate's "A Family Undertaking" uncovers a growing social trend: the home funeral movement. More often, Americans are choosing to do it themselves when it comes to burying loved ones and easing their own grief. Far from being a radical innovation, however, keeping funeral rites in the family or among friends is exactly how death was handled for most of pre-twentieth century America.

Click here for more information

CROSSINGS: Caring for Our Own at Death

2009-03-08T08:00:00.000-04:00

CROSSINGS is a home funeral and green burial resource center. We exist to foster the integration of dying and after-death care back into our family and community life. We strive to increase awareness of alternatives to conventional funeral and burial care. We believe that home funeral and green burial care are more meaningful, affordable and environmentally responsible. We are a home funeral and green burial resource center – particularly educating the family to act as funeral director – which is legal in almost all 50 States.

Click here for more information on CROSSINGS

The Surprising Satisfactions of a Home Funeral

2009-03-07T08:45:00.005-05:00

When his father and father-in-law died within days of each other, author Max Alexander learned much about the funeral industry

By Max Alexander, Smithsonian Magazine, March 2009

Two funerals, two days apart, two grandfathers of my two sons. When my father and father-in-law died in the space of 17 days in late 2007, there wasn't a lot of time to ruminate on the meaning of it all. My wife, Sarah, and I were pretty busy booking churches, consulting priests, filing newspaper notices, writing eulogies, hiring musicians, arranging military honor guards and sorting reams of paperwork (bureaucracy outlives us all), to say nothing of having to wrangle last-minute plane tickets a week before Christmas. But all that was a sideshow. Mostly we had to deal with a couple of cold bodies.

Click here for complete article

Green funerals bring back old ideas

2009-02-11T18:28:00.002-05:00

Some regard cemeteries as tranquil anterooms to the afterlife. Others see them as hazardous-waste sites, full of chemically treated wood and steel caskets, formaldehyde embalming fluid and concrete burial vaults.

The grass could be much greener on the other side. . .

By William Loeffler, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, February 9, 2009

Simple pine box wanted

2009-02-08T17:29:00.004-05:00

When my father passed away many years ago he wanted a simple pine box. At that time and place it was not available. One of the reasons for creating Cedar Brook Burial Ground Inc was that memory.

Why do Americans tend to spend so much on a casket? Well, you might want a grand display for a day or so. Some are even "more comfortable"—with an innerspring mattress and adjustable head-rest. More likely, however, low-cost caskets simply aren't on display.
Funeral Consumers Alliance

You want a simple pine box

What are the alternatives to an expensive casket?

"Be prepared for some resentment from the mortician at losing a big slice of the funeral profit if you obtain a casket elsewhere. Your right to do so is protected by federal law. There may be snide remarks about the "poor quality" of what you've purchased. If the bottom doesn't fall out, the "quality" of what you are about to bury in the ground or deliver to a crematory may be irrelevant. On the other hand, some of the hand-made or small-production caskets available may be far superior in quality to something from an automated souped-up assembly line. . . "

Note: The funeral home may NOT add a "handling fee" if you order the casket on your own.

Now we have any number of locally available, locally made, reasonably priced plain coffins. Our right to have a burial to suit our wishes is protected by law. Know your rights before you visit the funeral professional. Consumers' rights under the law

Buy locally from a casket or urn artisan.
List of coffin craftsmen

Or build your own

How to Make the Quick Coffin from Lasting Things

Have more questions?

The Funeral Consumers Alliance, FUNERAL SELF-HELP - Your Questions Answered Here

Green Burial Council is an independent, nonprofit organization founded to encourage ethical and environmentally sustainable deathcare practices and to use the burial process as a means of facilitating the acquisition, restoration and stewardship of natural areas.

We are available to answer your questions for burials at Cedar Brook Burial Ground.

Lakin's "do-it-yourself" funerals

2008-11-14T20:44:00.011-05:00

Funeral Options

Funeral planning is less stressful and can cost less if planned ahead. Many people do not know they can plan a funeral or burial that is out of the ordinary or alternative to more familiar services or arrangements. For those reasons this information has been prepared for Consumers. This is not an endorsement of any one approach over the other but simply an offering of information that illustrates choice since we believe it is everyone's choice to live as one chooses until one dies. Why not have choices with one's funeral and burial planning as well? This tool may help you accomplish those goals that are within your power. For more information

Funerals: A Consumer's Guide

Conversion Coffins

After his father's death, Chuck Lakin, a reference librarian at Miller, wondered if there was a way a family might play a bigger part in a loved one's funeral. "My father was at home for the last six weeks of his life, we were all touching him when he died. Then the funeral director walks in, takes over, and four days later, we had a box of ashes," Lakin recalled. Dissatisfied with the mechanical nature of modern-day funerals, Lakin decided to help people make them more personal. "There are only two states that require a funeral director," he explained. "In Maine, you can keep the body at home, and deliver it to the cemetery yourself." For more information

Author: Neha Sud '05

Whatever Happened to ‘Dust to Dust’?

2008-11-01T06:00:00.005-04:00

You Can Still Find It in Green Burial

By the time Nate Fisher was laid to rest in a woodland grave sans coffin in the final season of Six Feet Under, Americans all across the country were starting to look outside the box when death came calling.

Grave Matters follows a dozen such families who found in “green” burial a more natural, more economic and ultimately more meaningful alternative to the tired and toxic send-off on offer at the local funeral parlor.

Listen to the interview with Mark Harris on Fresh Air by host, Terry Gross.

Consumer info & supplies

2008-10-01T06:30:00.005-04:00

About Limington, Maine
Changing funeral & burial practices
Pets included
Green cemeteries in the US
Two green cemeteries in Maine
Earth Compatible Caskets
Green Burials
New England Green Burial Society

Iron gate installed at Joshua Small Cemetery

2008-09-16T08:53:00.008-04:00

The Limington Historical Society which maintains the Joshua Small Cemetery contracted with Timothy Greene of Standfast Works Forge of Parsonsfield, Maine to fabricate a new gate for the Joshua Small plot.

The public is welcome to visit the Joshua Small Cemetery located here at Cedar Brook Burial Ground on Boothby Road, Limington.

For information about the Limington Historical Society email Anne Dunbar, Secretary or or call 207-637-2970.
On the web at Limington Historical Society.

Information on the internet

2008-08-11T09:35:00.004-04:00

Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine
Green Burials

Cedar Brook Burial Ground: a Green Option

2008-04-25T09:46:00.014-04:00

Cedar Brook Burial Ground is now open. Visitors are welcome to tour the Grounds.

Please call ahead to be sure Peter McHugh will be available to guide you. 207.637.2085

Paths with memorial stones and traditional plots are available.

Prices & Environmental considerations

For additional information contact Peter McHugh at 207.637.2085

For driving directions:
Call 207.637.2085 or email
Or use 175 Boothby Rd, Limington, ME to get directions online.
Or click here for map & directions from Portland, ME
Click here for map & directions from Hampton, NH Toll booth

Open House planned

2008-03-15T14:13:00.005-04:00

Winter visitors at Cedar Brook Burial Ground.

Cedar Brook Burial Ground is located on a 150 acre tree farm thirty miles due west of Portland. Within its borders sits the rock wall-enclosed Joshua Small Cemetery, a tiny, historic graveyard whose dozen burials date back to the early 1800s.

An Open House is planned for the Spring. New paths with memorial stones will be available in addition to the more traditional plots.

If you would like to be notified of the Open House and other up coming events, please submit your email address at: CBBG.

Dust to dust (and no more) Limington’s green cemetery

2007-11-18T07:07:00.002-05:00

by Cliff White, Staff Writer, Gorham Westbrook Gazette, November 16, 2007

Peter McHugh rides his all-terrain vehicle across the 2.1 acres of 150-acre property he has recently devoted to creating Maine’s first green cemetery.

He points out prospective locations for burial sites – little spaces of cleared land marked only by brown fallen leaves amidst a forest of mostly bare trees. . . .

Maine law allows small family graveyards no larger than a quarter-acre without the need for a permit, as long as no bodies are buried within 25 rods (413 feet) from the nearest land used for public recreation or potable water source. However, some years ago, McHugh decided he wanted to create a cemetery that gives others the option to be buried in a more natural fashion than otherwise available.

“I wanted to give people the option to be buried in the way they prefer,” McHugh says. “If they prefer a more environmentally friendly, less costly method of burial, then they should have that option.”

The town of Limington has no local ordinances regarding the development of commercial cemeteries, so McHugh needed only to apply to the state. In September, McHugh registered his cemetery – named the Cedar Brook Burial Ground after a local topographical feature – with the Department of Health and Human Services. McHugh says it took only about 10 days after the submission of his application to receive notice of his registration as a cemetery. . . .

McHugh allows customers to choose their own space in his cemetery, and to mark the spot with any local stone, which he says he will allow to be engraved. He says he will allow unlimited visitations by anyone interested. . . .

“Last year 22,500 cemeteries across the US buried 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, 104,272 tons of steel, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, 30-plus million board feet of hardwoods and 1.6 million tons of concrete,” Christensen says. “In purely ecological terms, how we bury our dead is unsustainable.”

Mark Harris, author of the book “Grave Matters,” an examination of alternative methods of burial, said green cemeteries are becoming more popular in America because they are easier on the environment. . . .

Green burials can also help save a different kind of green – the kind found in people’s wallets.

“Between charges for embalming, a metal casket, a vault, a headstone, the cemetery charges for a plot and the opening and closing of a grave, and the fee for perpetual care and maintenance of the gravesite, funeral costs today can easily run $10,000 or more,” Harris said. “Green burials, in contrast, run in the low thousands of dollars, and can be less depending on personal choices. So the cost differential is huge.”

McHugh says saving on funeral costs is a significant factor in choosing a green burial ground.

“It’s a simpler, less costly way to bury your loved one,” McHugh says. “Traditional funerals can get very expensive. I wanted to give people another option.”

For complete article

Maine a pioneer in green cemeteries

2007-10-28T16:05:00.001-04:00

Peter McHugh’s 150-acre tree farm already contains a small graveyard, and now he has Cedar Brook Burial Ground, about 20 miles west of Portland, ready to do business as a green cemetery.

There are seven green cemeteries in the United States, according to national experts.

A green cemetery contains people buried in simple graves, usually in natural, forested areas. Bodies are wrapped in shrouds or placed in wicker or pine coffins. The cemeteries do not accept bodies containing formaldehyde or other embalming chemicals, and they don't accept metal coffins or use concrete vaults.

They also don't have manicured, fertilized lawns or polished granite monuments.

From an article by John Richardson, Staff Writer, October 28, 2007 in the Maine Sunday Telegram

Note: 2.25 acres are devoted to Cedar Brook Burial Ground 2.25 acres devoted to the cemetery with more acorage available when the need arises.

First Green Cemetery to open in Maine

2007-10-26T17:04:00.001-04:00

According to the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, Cedar Brook Burial Ground is the first green burial site in New England.

FAQ: Requirements & prices

2007-10-14T10:36:00.005-04:00

Cedar Brook Burial Ground is an environmentally green cemetery.

Price:

$800 - Single burial site
$1400 - Double burial site
$600 - Military veterans
$300 - Cremated remains - one burial
Pets allowed at no additional cost

Requirements:

Use of a shroud or biodegradable container, i.e. plain pine box with no finish

No use of chemicals allowed

Cedar Brook Burial Ground is now open

2007-10-07T11:13:00.002-04:00

There are very few Green Burial site in the United States.

Cedar Brook Burial Ground is the first "Green Cemetery" in Maine. Each burial site will have a specific location. Visitors will be able to find the resting place of the loved one using global positioning equipment.

For a tour of Cedar Brook Burial Ground or more information please call me at 207 637 2085 or e-mail me a.green.cemetery@gmail.com
Peter McHugh.

Cedar Brook Burial Grounds

2007-10-05T08:06:00.002-04:00

Work is underway creating a green cemetery in Limington, Maine.

Contact information

2007-10-01T10:12:00.005-04:00

Contact Peter McHugh
Cedar Brook Burial Ground, Inc.
175 Boothby Road
P.O. Box 511
Limington, ME 04049-0511
207.637.2085
Email: a.green.cemetery@gmail.com

Visitors welcome year round

Driving directions from Portland

2007-10-01T08:00:00.001-04:00

Driving directions to 175 Boothby Rd, Limington, ME 04049 from Portland, ME
26.2 mi – about 54 mins

1. Head southwest on Congress St toward Exchange St 0.4 mi
2. Turn right at Forest Ave 0.7 mi
3. Turn right to merge onto I-295 S toward So Portland 0.9 mi
4. Take exit 5B for Congress St/ME-22 W 0.2 mi
5. Merge onto Congress St/ME-22 1.4 mi
6. Slight right at Westbrook St 1.3 mi
7. Continue on Stroudwater St 1.7 mi
8. Turn left at ME-25/William L Clarke Dr Continue to follow ME-25 2.3 mi
9. Slight left at Main St/ME-25 Continue to follow ME-25 15.5 mi
10. Turn left at Boothby Rd 1.7 mi to 175 Boothby Rd, Limington, ME 04049

These directions are for planning purposes only. You may find that construction projects, traffic, weather, or other events may cause conditions to differ from the map results, and you should plan your route accordingly. You must obey all signs or notices regarding your route.
Map data ©2008 NAVTEQ™

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