Members of a cemetery restoration group from the Blackstone Valley Historical Society recently spent a morning cleaning up the Mann Burial Ground in North Attleboro.

Members of a cemetery restoration group from the Blackstone Valley Historical Society recently spent a morning cleaning up the Mann Burial Ground in North Attleboro.

Members of a cemetery restoration group from the Blackstone Valley Historical Society recently spent a morning cleaning up the Mann Burial Ground in North Attleboro.

Members of a cemetery restoration group from the Blackstone Valley Historical Society recently spent a morning cleaning up the Mann Burial Ground in North Attleboro.

Members of a cemetery restoration group from the Blackstone Valley Historical Society recently spent a morning cleaning up the Mann Burial Ground in North Attleboro.

Members of a cemetery restoration group from the Blackstone Valley Historical Society recently spent a morning cleaning up the Mann Burial Ground in North Attleboro.

It’s not the oldest cemetery in town — that would be the colonial graveyard near the Woodcock Garrison House — but another restoration effort has been made to a historical site in North Attleboro.

Members of a cemetery restoration group from the Blackstone Valley Historical Society recently spent a morning cleaning up the Mann Burial Ground, located off Draper Avenue between Route 1 and Old Post Road.

The cemetery originally had about nine grave markers from 1778 to 1808 for members of the Mann and Draper families. By 1997, only two stones and a fragment remained.

Leading the Blackstone Valley group’s effort was the Rev. Ken Postle, a central Massachusetts pastor with a passion for preservation. This was his second trip to the cemetery, located in North Attleboro’s Oldtown section, where settlers from Attleborough, England, first ventured to in the 17th century.

The group cleared out much of the brush that had overwhelmed the cemetery — it’s amazing how quickly nature takes over an unused piece of land — except for a large tree limb, which could not be cut or moved.

The group also cleaned the two remaining headstones and took photos that are on their Facebook page.

Postle says it’s a shame because vandals over the years have caused significant damage to the burial ground. It appears an aluminum bat was even used to make a rounded dent in one of the stones.

“In my examination of the outskirts, it was clear that there were shattered pieces of slate outside of the enclosure and that other pieces had been used in the construction of the wall,” he said, referring to the stones that frame the 20-by-20-foot plot.

The cemetery is also probably larger than it appears, Postle said.

“Sadly, whoever built the wall didn’t take into account where the footstones would have been, so the cemetery is bigger than the enclosure would make it look,” he said.

Postle said there also may be more graves in the area than it appears.

“I am wondering if the Draper family had servants who, in the colonial fashion, may have been buried outside the family perimeter,” he said in an email.

Still, the Mann Burial Ground is a time capsule right in our backyard. It’s a fairly typical representation of how people in the early days of our nation buried their dead.

In fact, before 1831, America had no cemeteries. It’s not that Americans didn’t bury their dead, it’s just that large, modern graveyards did not exist. The first, actually, was in Massachusetts at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.

In the 17th century, families would simply bury their dead near the family homestead. Later, burial grounds for several families were located near churches.

In his book “Cemeteries,” Keith Eggener, an associate professor of American art and architecture at the University of Missouri, explained to The Atlantic magazine how burial grounds evolved from these small plots to the large tracts of land we know.

In the early 19th century, the old church burial grounds were beginning to be seen as inadequate, dangerous, crowded, expensive to maintain, and as carriers of disease, Eggener explained.

Thousands of burials took place on very small plots of ground, which soon filled up. There were often burials five or six coffins deep.

During times of epidemics — yellow fever, cholera — cemeteries were seen as spreaders of these diseases. Sometimes the walls would break down during floods, breaking open coffins and spilling bodies into the street.

“It was actually quite horrible,” Eggener told the magazine.

At the same time, cities became more crowded, increasing the price of land. As the economy was growing, Americans wanted to provide better amenities for their citizens.

Cemeteries were seen as the last great necessity. By moving the dead out of the city center to places like Cambridge, these “rural cemeteries” allowed for much larger burial grounds that also removed the dead from the immediate realm of the living.

In any event, the Mann Burial Ground looks a lot better, thanks to the efforts of Postle’s group.

You may say it’s been given a new life.

MIKE KIRBY, a Sun Chronicle columnist, can be reached at mkirbygolf18@gmail.com.