By Lucas Gustafson
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FRAMINGHAM – Boy Scout Fletcher Duncan Calder, a recent 2021 Framingham High graduate, has designed an app that has mapped nearly 13,000 graves at historic Edgell Grove Cemetery in Framingham.
At last Wednesday’s meeting of the trustees of the cemetery, Calder showcased his newly-created app.
The app was created for his Eagle Project.
“The project is not completed. … It’s a work in progress,” said Calder to the Cemetery Trustees.
But what has been completed so far impressed the elected officials.
The app is essentially a database of all the graves at Edgell Grove enhanced with Google Maps.
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Calder began by compiling the names on the gravestones manually, before choosing to move them online due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
He worked on this app with his sister, who took care of the coding for the site.
Calder even went through the effort of taking a picture of every single grave he could, with help from other Scouts – almost 13,000.
The app allows the user to search for the names of specific individuals, as well as select individual graves from the map.
The application is incredibly user-friendly and has a number of important features. One notable one is the ability to see other graves within a single family by using the “show nearby graves” feature.
Calder hopes this app will draw attention to the cemetery and its history.
Cemetery Trustee John Feeney agreed, citing the grave site of General George Gordon, an important figure from the Civil War buried at Edgell Grove.
“If people knew exactly where the general is buried, they might be more likely to visit,” said Feeney.
Most importantly, families can find solace by locating their loved ones’ graves, said Calder.
The Framingham High graduate will be leaving in August to join the Army, so he plans to hand his app over to the Trustees to host it on the cemetery’s website.
The app project then will be open-sourced and editable by anyone, allowing the public to finish what Calder started.
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Lucas Gustafson is an SOURCE summer intern. intern working for SOURCE. He will be entering his senior year at Framingham High in September. He is a member of the National Honor Society and has won awards from Rochester Institute of Technology and his Spanish teacher. He loves to study politics, history, and writing. His hobbies include reading, drawing, and painting. After graduating from high school, Lucas plans to study politics and journalism. This is his first published report for SOURCE.
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Photos by Lucas Gustafson
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