Cemeteries are often thought of as final resting places but they can also offer a look into a community’s past offering clues about those who have come before.

Allison Hepler, a member of the Woolwich select board and town’s historical committee, will share some of the interesting facts she’s collected at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, at the Patten Free Library in Bath. She’s titled her program, “Where the Bodies are Buried.” The lecture is part of the library’s history of small towns series.

Hepler has a passion for history that she shares with her students at the University of Maine Farmington where she teaches. She earned a PhD from Temple University and a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Why graveyards? “Because they’re interesting,” Hepler said. She and her husband Rob have visited about half of Woolwich’s 16 to 20 cemeteries. Some are small family plots on private property with only a few gravestones to mark them.

“Something interesting we’ve discovered is that many of the cemeteries here in Woolwich aren’t associated with churches,” she said.

One of them was Gould Cemetery in the woods along Monstweag Brook not far from Montsweag Roadhouse. “A local family sort of adopted this cemetery helping care for the grounds and putting up a sign identifying it,” she said.

There’s a memorial on private property in Day’s Ferry marking the grave of Ebenezer Preble and his wife Mary Harden who died together on June 9, 1758. “Killed by Indians at their home one mile south of this spot and buried here June 9, 1758,” reads the inscription on a bronze plaque attached to a huge rock. It addsthat six Preble children were taken captive, one dying at the hands of the captors. The memorial was dedicated by decedents of the Prebles in 1905-06.

Hepler said at Grover Cemetery off Old Stage Road is a tall stone obelisk marking the resting place of Addison and Harlan Bailey, brothers who died far from home serving in the Union army during the Civil War. Addison succumbed to typhoid fever on March 26, 1863 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while Harlan was killed in the fighting at the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia.

At still another grave in a different cemetery, Hepler discovered a carving of a four-link chain with the last link broken. She first thought this meant the deceased had been a member of the fraternal Order of Odd Fellows, but their symbol is three unbroken links. A search online revealed a chain with a broken link symbolizes a lost family member.

One story Hepler intends to share is that of Benjamin Grover who operated a tavern at his home around the time of the Revolutionary War. Grover’s Tavern was the first stagecoach stop on the northbound route on the winding dirt road from Day’s Ferry to Wiscasset and a favorite watering hole for weary travelers.

There’s a tragic story connected with Ben Grover. One version is found in the “History of Woolwich, Maine — A Town Remembered, published by the Woolwich Historical Society. On July 31, 1789, Ben’s wife, Lydia Lancaster, and her small child were attempting to cross Nequasset Pond when their boat suddenly capsized. The young mother and child drowned in the terrible accident.

Ben Grover later remarried and he and his new wife, Joanna Trott, had 16 children, including three sets of twins! At his request, when old Ben was laid to rest in 1833, it was in Nequasset Cemetery alongside Lydia, his first bride. Their rounded memorial stone is easily found in about the middle of the cemetery.

Hepler noted every Memorial Day volunteers place American flags on the graves of Woolwich’s military veterans from a list maintained at the town office.

“For Rob and me, it’s been a fascinating experience visiting these cemeteries. You really can learn a lot just from reading many of the inscriptions,” Hepler continued. “We recognized a lot of the last names on the graves because some of their ancestors are still living in Woolwich and have been for many generations.”