Wayland Town Crier 11/31/11: Inside look at Colonial gravestones in Wayland. October is the month when we transition to the autumn season as well as anticipate the celebration of Halloween, which has its roots in ancient cultures. The Celtic people of Britain marked the change of seasons at the end of October in a festival called Samhain, when they believed that the ghosts of the dead were able to haunt the living. A trip to a local graveyard can also reveal what New Englanders in Colonial times felt about death. A record of some of Wayland’s early history can be found in the North Cemetery on Route 27 opposite the site of the Colonial era Cow Common. In 1639, when Wayland was incorporated, it was known as Sudbury. Later it became East Sudbury in 1780. The name of Wayland was adopted in 1835. The site of the original Sudbury meetinghouse, built in 1643, is at North Cemetery. Early gravesites from that time surrounded the meetinghouse, causing the area to be referred to as the Old Burying Ground. Gravesites in these days often had flat stones on the ground to protect the graves from animals.