Burial space has already run out on Nantucket Island, but Massachusetts law requires burial spaces for anyone dying within town limits. Now officials are scrambling to find a place for their dead to go.
"The last person to be buried on Nantucket in a town-owned grave was in 2003 in a discreet plot in the back of the Old North Cemetery."
"The New Town Cemetery next to the high school, meanwhile, last accepted a burial in 1999. It has an unknown number of spaces left, and because some graves are not marked with a headstone, no one is sure where someone's final resting place may be - Nantucket's lone undertaker is not going to take a chance digging a new grave and discovering an old one."
"There are still plenty of plots available in the privately owned cemeteries - Prospect Hill and St. Mary's - but under Massachusetts's general law, the town is required to 'provide one or more suitable places for the interment of persons dying within its limits.'"
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