The Old Lyme Cemetery Association was incorporated on September 1, 1860, “for the purpose of procuring and establishing additions to, and enlargements of the Burying Ground, near Duck River in said Old Lyme, and for fencing and otherwise improving said Burying Ground and the additions thereto.” Charles J. McCurdy served as the first President, with Horace L. Sill, Almon Bacon, and Israel Matson chosen as Directors.

Today the OLCA is a non-profit 501(c)13 administered by a board of directors. The Association oversees Duck River Cemetery, which includes gravestones dating from 1676, along with the historic Meetinghouse Hill cemetery nearby and six other cemeteries in Old Lyme. The Duck River, Laysville, Point o’Woods, and Griswold cemeteries are active burial places. Smaller family cemeteries, like the Champion cemetery in Black Hall and the Waite cemetery in South Lyme, no longer receive burials.

The OLCA does not maintain the Peck family cemetery on today’s Saunders Hollow Road, or the small cemetery in South Lyme with one grave marker and several field stones, or the solitary grave markers on Meetinghouse Hill and at Hatchett’s Point.