Why was a loud, bustling, stress-inducing transit center located next to a few acres of cedar and crab apple trees and scores of old gravestones? Generations of some families are buried at Eldredge, including 17 members of the Isham family, whose deaths from 1822 to 2014 span nearly two centuries.

Unidentified soldiers from the War of 1812 and the Civil War are buried here, along with people whose surnames are familiar to locals: Bostwick, Holbrook, Patchen, Van Sicklen. At the cemetery, which operates at a slower place, 573 people have reached their final destination over the course of 225 years. Roughly 220 planes and 1,400 people land at the airport every day. From a rise in the burial ground, you can read the logo on a plane as it ascends to the southeast from the same spot, you'll want to duck and cover your ears at the speed and roar of a fighter jet. Little beeps and flashing lights from the runway - nearby, but a world away - signal action.

The cemetery is nestled between Beta Technologies and Heritage Aviation, bordered on two sides by fences with signs that warn: 'Federal Law Prohibits Unauthorized Entry.' In the still of the graveyard, moss and lichen inch their way over headstones, obscuring the names of the dead. The two meet near the intersection of Airport Drive and Airport Road in South Burlington, where Burlington International Airport and its aviation affiliates surround Eldredge Cemetery on three sides. There are landing places - and then there are landing places.

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