There are ghosts all around us.

In Point of Graves cemetery, a shaded plot surrounded by a stone wall across from Prescott Park, Josephine Morrill Sanborn recalls the night she was walking in the park during the legendary Smuttynose murders of 1873.

Over at North Cemetery, a young John Langdon revisits his “many treasonable insults and outrages.” Thomas Kehr, dressed from wig to shoe-buckle in colonial garb, brings to life the man who rallied an estimated 400 citizens to reclaim more than 100 barrels of gunpowder and small arms from the British-controlled Fort William and Mary in 1774. Patriotic New Hampshire-ites claim his actions as the first skirmish of the American Revolution.

This summer, local historians gather at Portsmouth cemeteries for a series of educational programs about such legends and facts from Portsmouth’s past. The Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Cemetery Committee is hosting 33 graveside presentations as a part of “Spirits Past, 2005: Bringing the Dead to Life.”

“The idea was that I was going to bring the dead to life, to use cemeteries for education, history and awareness,” said committee chairwoman and series creator Audrey Bierhans. “We need to have the dead people tell their stories,” she said.

Bierhans became the chairwoman in 2002 after she received a grant for replacing the crumbled gravestone of a prominent merchant who died in 1805. She unveiled the gravestone during a ceremony attended by Portsmouth Mayor Evelyn Sirrell. After seeing Bierhans’ initiative and commitment to restoring Portsmouth’s endangered cemeteries, Sirrell appointed Bierhans to revive the long-inactive committee.

With no source of regular income, the committee relies on grants and donations to complete restoration projects and host educational programs. The project has become a labor of love for Bierhans and her husband, Irwin, as well as the others who have become involved.

Pleasant Street Cemetery is hidden on the shores of South Mill Pond. A thick wall of evergreens and a weeping willow make this cemetery “the lost one in Portsmouth,” says historian Glenn Knoblock, the author of two books about old burial grounds in New Hampshire. In the coolness of the evening shade, he plays tour guide as he weaves among the gravestones.

Knoblock points out the poetic justice of rich citizens purchasing the large, expensive and horizontal table stones:

“When it comes to gravestones, size does matter. It’s indicative of the social and economical status of the dead,” he says. The wealthy usually want to be remembered so they buy stones that stand out from the common man’s stone; however, historians are not sure who is buried at some of those graves. Ironically, it’s the cheaper vertical stones for the regular working man that has stood the test of time. 

Bierhans likes the idea of reading gravestones for information as well as for art’s sake.
“It’s some of the oldest artwork in America. You can touch it. Imagine being in a museum and touching the artwork. You’d get thrown out,” she said.

Bierhans wants her series of programs to offer rich, hands-on learning experiences to schoolchildren.

“I want to give children the opportunity to recreate history by researching a character” found in a cemetery, she says. Using her extensive background in theater, Beirhans’ ultimate goal is to create an amphitheater in one of the cemeteries and have school children come to the stage as his or her character and perform that character’s story for the rest of the class.
After a presentation one Friday evening, as the sun set over the water behind North Cemetery, Bierhans opened her arms and pointed around her at the spaces of soft green grass among the graves.

“This setting is beautiful. Why shouldn’t it be used for something?” 

Along with her determination to nurture her labor of love, she is open-minded, too.

“I don’t know where this is going. These programs have legs. I’m just letting them take me.”