By Stephen Tait
Staff Writer
May 07, 2008 10:41 pm NEWBURYPORT — For two decades, the stories of those buried in Oak Hill Cemetery were told not through the help of notes and binders but only through the memory of the late Todd Woodworth and his popular walking tours. But that will change this December when Woodworth's daughter, Ghlee Woodworth, publishes the first volume in a planned series of books that puts her father's extensive memory, and considerable research of her own, down in print — providing for the first time the option of a detailed self-guided tour. The book, "Tiptoe Through the Tombstones, Oak Hill Cemetery, Volume 1," will feature 80 to 100 tales of those buried in the historic graveyard, along with detailed maps. "I think it's just going to be a good thing for Newburyport. It is just another way to learn about the history of the city," Woodworth said yesterday. "It's for the Newburyport community and for Oak Hill. And it's definitely for my father. The book wouldn't exist without him doing his tours all those years." Since taking over her father's tours — which were dubbed "Tiptoe Through the Tombstones" — after he died in 2006, Woodworth said she has been compiling information about some of the more prominent of the more than 20,000 people buried at Oak Hill, just off State Street on Brown Street. At the start, she even took pictures and collected notes for each of the gravestones featured on the tours to get to know the subjects better. The book will feature a picture of each gravestone along with at least two pictures that help portray the people, something like a portrait or the ship a person captained, Woodworth said. It will also include three to five paragraphs of information on each grave just "to whet the appetite" of readers. Woodworth said she uses her father's expansive library and visits the city library a couple times a week to mine information for the book. But that is the easy part for Woodworth. "I love doing the research," she said. "But I don't not like the writing part." Woodworth says she gets that trait from her father. Todd Woodworth, who was born in 1921, lived on lower State Street near Oak Hill, and as a boy he and his friends often played in the cemetery. After World War II, he came back to the city and become a funeral director, and once again was connected to his childhood playground. Over the years, Woodworth, who became known as the city historian, was called on to help locate the burial sites of some of Newburyport's early residents. Often, his quests would take him to Oak Hill. Ghlee Woodworth said during a walk through the cemetery with his friend, Liam Sullivan, her father continually pointed out where former mayors, ship captains and other famous Newburyporters were located. Sullivan encouraged him to start a tour, and although Todd Woodworth was wary, he relented, and in 1988, 40 people took the first ever "Tiptoe" tour, Ghlee Woodworth said. Woodworth said she plans to publish at least four books, including one more about Oak Hill and two volumes about other historic Newburyport Cemeteries.
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Photos
Ghlee Woodworth talks about Francis Todd, who is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. He was in legal wrangling with Newburyport-born William Lloyd Garrison. Staff photo