It is estimated that between 1640 and the early 1800s most of the people who died within the bounds of modern Hartford, and some who died in the 1600s in what today are East Hartford and West Hartford, approximately between 5,000 and 6,000 people, were interred in the Ancient Burying Ground. A local historian arrived at that estimate around the turn of the twentieth century by multiplying an average of 30 burials annually over a period of 180 years, to arrive at a total of 5,400.
Many of those interred in the Ancient Burying Ground have been identified and their lives well documented. But for others, some anonymous, their presence in the Ancient Burying Ground is known only from the record of the cost of digging their graves.
An unknown number of those originally laid to rest in the Ancient Burying Ground have been disinterred, and in some cases discarded, as portions of the graveyard were appropriated over the centuries for other uses.
See: History and Rescue of a Heritage Icon to learn more about the history of the Ancient Burying Ground.