Portland's earliest burial ground was in use in the seventeenth century, prior to the Indian wars, although there are no inscribed headstones from that early period. The 4136 names contained in this listing were originally collected by William Augustus Goodwin in 1890. Ninety years later, William B. Jordan published (with corrections and additions) these names in Vol.'s 19 & 20 of the Maine Historical Society Quarterly. This web version of the list is therefore a transcription of a transcription. A small number of 'apparent errors' that exist in the MHSQ listing have been faithfully reproduced herein. I intend for this data to accurately reflect the existing MHSQ data. I have neither the desire nor the ability to verify the validity of this MHSQ data, or to evaluate any proposed changes. However, in the likely event that I have allowed additional errors to creep in during the process of my transcribing this data, I would be happy to verify and correct the data to match that that is in the MHSQ volumes.

Jordan's listing made a distinction between "wife of" and "widow of," I used "w" in both cases. In retrospect I see that this caused the loss of some useful information. If anyone feels the distinction is important for a particular entry, I would by glad to lookup Jordan's wording. I believe Goodwin's original index is available at the Maine Historic Society Library in Portland.