Photographs of the places behind the records
Modern context photographs are dated separately from the historic records. St. Mary’s is a distinct Catholic church, not a photograph of Saint Bernard Cemetery.
Center Church, documented in 1967
The congregation was organized in 1639. Its fourth meeting house, built in 1812–1814, enclosed part of the town burial ground beneath the sanctuary. This later architectural photograph provides context for the Center Church records in the archive.
June 1967 · Robert Fulton III, Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress. Public domain.
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An older burial ground beneath the sanctuary
When Center Church was built in 1812–1814, the graves beneath its footprint remained in place. The church reports 137 surviving gravestones. The brick floor visible in this modern photograph replaced a concrete floor in 1990 as part of efforts to manage moisture around the stones.
12 October 2025 · Marty Aligata / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized for display.
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The third sanctuary on West Haven Green
First Church began in 1719 after local farmers petitioned for a place to worship closer to home. Their original meeting house was replaced in 1851; after that building burned in 1857, the congregation built the present sanctuary in 1859. This photograph shows the later building, not the sanctuary used when the earliest church records were created.
13 October 2013 · Paperchaser 29 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Resized for display.
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St. Mary’s Church in a 1900 diocesan history
This 1900 book presents a later chapter in New Haven’s Catholic history. It describes St. John’s as an offshoot of St. Mary’s and dates the dedication of the pictured Hillhouse Avenue church to October 25, 1874. This photograph illustrates that later St. Mary’s building; it must not be identified as the original 1834 Christ’s Church or Saint Bernard Cemetery.
Photograph undated; published 1900 · James H. O’Donnell, History of the Diocese of Hartford(1900), plate after printed page 336. University of Connecticut Libraries / Internet Archive. Public domain.
Original source · License / reuseSILENT GROUNDS COLLECTIVE · SGC-CH-004
Church burial & death records
New Haven & West Haven, Connecticut · September 8, 2026
633 church reference rows · 1,441 searchable source pages · 25 source entries
Read scope and citation guide · Selected historical scans · Supplied burial tableThis is an incomplete research collection. West Haven register scans have not been obtained. Church deaths, membership notes and cemetery interments are distinct. OCR can misread dates, names, symbols and columns. Open the original source to verify.
Full original volume scans are linked to their repositories; only selected scan pages are included locally.