Excerpted from an article by Tom O'Connor published 23 May 1985 in the Lincoln County News

Area men research veterans' graves

Ed Crocker of Damariscotta and Nathan Hale of Newcastle are two men with a mission of overwhelming proportion. The two are in volved, in conjunction with state and private groups, in locating forgotten cemeteries and identifying the graves of veterans in Lincoln County

Crocker's interest in forgotten war veterans' grave sites was piqued when he discovered that the resting place of his uncle, a World War I veteran buried in the Robbinson-Glidden cemetery in Damariscotta, was not honored with a flag on Memorial Day.

Hale got involved in the project after taking up research of his wife's family's, the Boyntons, genealogy. His interest led him to become the coordinator for the Maine Surname Index Project.

These two gentlemen, though for differing reasons, found themselves working together after a mutual friend, George Dow of Nobleboro, (who himself was extensively involved in Nobleboro's identification of town cemeteries), introduced them.

Before going into the details of their work there are two groups which need to identified. First, The Maine State Library's Surname Index Project which has as its primary goal the creation of an index of persons who lived in Maine up to 1900. The index is being developed through the voluntary efforts of people like Hale and Crocker

The second group, the Maine Old Cemetery Association, was founded in 1969 to discover, restore and maintain old cemeteries and their records and any historical information relating to them. Hale identified the increased interest in family genealogies as the motivator for these two projects.

For these two groups to work successfully they have depended on the assistance of the Maine Historical Society Library, the Daughters of the American Revolution, libraries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and several posts of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion, Hale added.

Crocker's role in the team's work has been as "leg man," locating abandoned cemeteries and gathering family information from existing headstones. He also identifies and records the locations of veterans' gravesites. "The best place to look for abandoned cemeteries) is in the corners of old stone fences or near old apple orchards," Crocker said.

The information he gathers is funneled through Hale, who transfers the genealogy data onto a Surname Index Project document which is sent to the state Library. The cemetery's location is indicated on a Department of Transportation map which is then included in the county record of cemeteries.

Hale, as part of his duties as coordinator of the Surname Project, sends a Department of Transportation map to every town clerk in the state with instructions on how to gather information. It is then up to the town and its citizens to provide the labor needed to accumulate the data.

The two men have helped in the creation of a resource with the potential of serving future generations. The plan to publish a book this fall with the names of all Lincoln County's veterans is not the end of the project.

"This is a project that will never really end," Crocker said, "every time I turn around someone is coming up to me and telling of another cemetery they have found or heard of somewhere off in the woods."

Some of the complicating aspects of gathering genealogical information such as, "people who had no property had no head marker, there were more lenient burial laws, many people went west, this area's involvement with the maritime industry meant a number of people perished at sea and the special problem of contagious disease requiring quick burial," were described by Hale.

Another possible point of confusion is the past practice of, "boys hired to mow the cemetery moving smaller markers and then replacing them haphazardly," Hale added.

Crocker recounted the experience of the Moravian cemetery in Waldoboro where "Six or seven years ago a farmer removed all the markers and plowed up the cemetery to plant his crop.'

Hale came to Newcastle after retiring as headmaster of a private school in Rhode Island Crocker was born in Damariscotta and after serving in WWII “from D-day +1 to VE day he left the area, due to the limited prospects of the local economy, to work for the post office for twenty years in Connecticut and Massachusetts

Their volunteer work is coordinated through the Retired Seniors Volunteer Program in Lincoln County.

Obituary for Edward A. Crocker

Edward A. Crocker, 64, Damariscotta, died June 15 in a Portland hospital. He was born in Damariscotta, the son of John H. and Marguerite Lessner Crocker. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, from June 6, 1944, to May 8, 1945.

He later worked for the U.S. Postal Service for more than 20 years in Connecticut and Massachusetts. He was a member of the American Legion of Damariscotta and a life member of the VFW in Waldoboro.

Mr. Crocker was also a member of the Central Senior Citizens Association in Damariscotta and was involved in locating forgotten cemeteries and identifying the graves of veterans in Lincoln County.

He was one of the coordinators of the Maine Surname Index Project and was an avid gardener.

He is survived by two sisters, Mrs. Edna Weaver of Damariscotta and Mrs. Florence Cossette of Wiscasset; and two brothers, Chester Crocker of Wiscasset and Charles Crocker of Lewiston.

Funeral services were held at 1 p.m. Tuesday at the Strong Funeral Home. Interment in the Calais Memorial Cemetery, Calais.