St. Matthew’s Cemetery is owned and maintained by St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, 36 New Canaan Road, Wilton, CT. 06897. The church office phone number is 203-762-7400.

 

The cemetery was founded in the early 19th century and the oldest grave is that of Sarah Williams, buried in 1802. There are currently over 900 individuals interred in the cemetery and grave sites are still available.

 

The iron gates at Danbury Road lead to the “old” section of the cemetery. Records are kept for those located to the left or the right of the roadway leading from the gates. In addition there is a “new” section of the cemetery with its own set of records. The new section is to the south of the right side of the old cemetery, towards the Wilton Town Hall parking area. Part of this new cemetery area is a memorial garden where cremations may be buried; a plaque listing names of those interred in the memorial garden is in the Narthex at St. Matthew’s church.

 

For over 30 years the cemetery and its records have been maintained by a loyal parishioner, Winkie Chesley, who continues in that capacity. Starting in 2012 two Eagle Scout candidates, Endy Perry and Elliot Connors began to bring the records into digital form for others to share. This project included:

 

• Entering names, dates and important facts for those interred into a Cemetery Information Management System (CIMS)

 

• Documenting exact locations of gravesites in the old cemetery by name, plot, row and position. This data is available on this web site via a link to a “Google doc.” for the left side or the right side of the old cemetery.

 

• Taking pictures of gravestones and matching them to the exact locations. These pictures are available on line through a link from this web site to a “dropbox” site.

 

• Development of this web site that the information would be available to others.

 

• The process of entering the exact locations into the CIMS data base and linking the locations to names has begun. Later the pictures will also be added to the CIMS program with links to the appropriate name and location.

 

It is expected that by 2017 the CIMS data base will be on line “in the cloud” and available for all to see and navigate.

 

Please let us know if you have any questions. Enjoy the site!