Save Spruce Bank, Wilton’s Ancient Black Burying Ground

Wiltonians believe that ancient burying grounds must not be disturbed. The beloved sons and daughters, mothers and fathers of Wilton’s past should rest in peace.

State law has codified this fundamental belief: it is a felony to intentionally destroy or remove gravetones or grave enclosures, or to disturb the contents of tombs in any cemetery or burial ground. CT Gen Stat § 53a-218 (2019)

The people buried at Spruce Bank were Black Wiltonians. Enslaved people laid their loved ones to rest in this cemetery beginning around 1749 and through the abolition of slavery in Connecticut in 1848. Spruce Bank’s last known burial, a child, was in 1878. No one knows how many are buried here: it could be as few as a handful or as many as a hundred.

Land records prove that Spruce Bank is located on the northern half of 331 Danbury Road. Because the people buried there did not have the means to purchase carved tombstones, they marked their graves with granite fieldstones. White residents vandalized and removed these fieldstones in the late nineteenth century, effectively wiping Spruce Bank off the map. Today a small house sits on the property and no surface evidence of the cemetery can be seen.

We the undersigned appeal to the owners and prospective developers of 331 Danbury Road and to the Planning & Zoning Department of the Town of Wilton on behalf of the people buried at Spruce Bank and their descendants. Do not allow further development of 331 Danbury Road unless a thorough and professional archaeological investigation of the property, including but not limited to the use of Ground Penetrating Radar, proves that the remains of Spruce Bank will not be disturbed.