Wiscasset’s Ancient Cemetery is fenceless no more. Town Manager Dennis Simmons said the $53,500 fence started going up earlier this month. 

“We do not yet have a timeline on the entrance,” Simmons said. Last month, bids on the entrance ran over budget and selectmen OK’d officials to pick the lowest qualified bid and tap the board’s contingency account for the extra money needed, beyond the $50,000 budgeted from cemetery lot sales. Great Works Landscape of Dresden bid $58,708; Ursa Concepts of Waldoboro, $75,930, Simmons said at the time.

A regular passerby of the cemetery, Westport Island’s Kelly Delano, out walking friend Ethel Stansfield’s yellow Lab Sophie Oct. 19, was liking the new fence. She said it looks nice and helps the spot look finished.

Wiscasset’s Susan Blagden has ancestors buried in the cemetery. She, too, is liking the new fence. In a phone interview Oct. 21, Blagden said cemetery committee member Peter Wells did “an amazing job” designing it. “And I can’t wait for the entrance to get there.”

According to Wiscasset Newspaper files, the cemetery’s white, partly rotted wooden fence was removed in June 2021; this one is black aluminum, according to files.