Dear Editor:

Wiscasset’s economy, brief spikes of shipping, railroad or nuclear prosperity aside, has always depended wholly on the custom of the traveler. Most people come here on their way to somewhere else, and some stop and spend enough time to spend money. We promote ourselves in the way in which we steward our historic attractions, from homes to jails and gardens, and certainly our historic cemetery.

A very few have been fortunate enough to call this home, in relation to the number who just pass through. It is those few, however, who have built and shaped the Village that attracts the traveler. They do so with their daily lives here, and in the buildings, traditions and stories they leave behind for the long or short time they lived here.

We owe them a debt of gratitude and respect that is wholly absent in the recent removal of the Ancient Cemetery fence. A removal most boldly undertaken on the eve of an election no less, and in deliberate circumvention of input from the town’s Cemetery Committee, the citizens appointed to advise stewardship of these matters. For shame.

The Wiscasseteers in our Ancient Cemetery are among those who gave us the assets we have as a destination Village for travelers and visitors. Some of our oldest graves and most fragile headstones are now the most vulnerable to foot traffic erosion and damage. It’s a disgraceful state of affairs which should be remedied with as much dispatch as it was rendered.

Elizabeth Palmer

Wiscasset