In Egremont: When parents outlive children
Editor's note: This is the fourth in a summer-long series in which Advocate Assistant Editor Judith Fairweather visits old to try to dig up interesting tidbits of local history. Read all her columns at blogtheberkshires.com.
By JUDITH FAIRWEATHER
EGREMONT -- The south Berkshire town of Egremont was incorporated on Feb. 13, 1760, from the lands west of the North Parish of Sheffield. However, many of the early records have been lost, destroyed in a fire somewhere around the year 1839.
But the people of Egremont were determined not to let their history slip away. A book was created by Mary L. and Diane Fratalone with an inventory of each graveyard and its occupants. The book is undated, but proved to be a major blessing as I was searching for stories for this column.
I focused on the Mount Everett Cemetery, a tiny and very old graveyard conveniently located right next door to the Egremont Free Library on Button Ball Lane. The Fratalones included with each entry the major families buried in the cemetery and a little bit about them. The rest of the inhabitants are listed alphabetically, by family, with their birth date, date of death and age.
One notable Mount Everett resident is Philo Upson, a quarry owner who died Jan. 13, 1840, at age 37 when the paddle-wheeler the Lexington caught fire in Long Island Sound on its way to Connecticut. Only four people out of the 115 passengers and crew survived the wreck.
The oldest stone in the cemetery belongs to Maj. Joseph Benjamin, who fought in the Revolutionary War. Born July 1, 1763, he died on May 17, 1803, at age 39. But the real story here is his wife, Susannah, who lived until 1856, when she died at the age of 90. Not only did she outlive her husband by more than 50 years, but she also had to live with an eerie coincidence. She and her husband had one daughter, who was born Nov. 28, 1794. Emma was not even 9 when her father died. The coincidence lies in her date of death on Aug. 30, 1833 -- 30 years after her father died, and also at the age of 39. If I were Susannah Benjamin, I would certainly have stayed away from anything that had the number three -- or nine -- attached to it.
Susannah was not the only mother to experience grief in her lifetime. Amasa and Catherine Austin, born in 1774 and 1780, respectively, both lived into their 80s -- quite a long time, given that era. However, their lives were far from easy. They had seven children: Montgomery, born Dec. 3, 1800; Catherine, born Feb. 10, 1803; Amasa, born in 1806; Loomis, born in 1807; John, born June 10, 1810; Lydia, born Feb. 23, 1813; and Lovisa, born June 14, 1816.
Unfortunately, the Austin children were not as long-lived as their parents. The first to pass was young Catherine at age 13 in 1816, making hers the third-oldest grave in Mount Everett. The next was Montgomery in 1827, at the tender age of 26. A three short years later, young Amasa would die at only 24 years old. Twenty-three years would pass before John died at age 43 in 1853, the last child that Amasa the elder would have to bury before his death in 1857 at age 82. But it would not be the last for Catherine.
Lovisa would follow, at age 44 in 1861, and then Loomis in 1868 at age 61. Poor Catherine had to bury six of her seven children before dying herself in 1870 at age 89, leaving Lydia a true orphan, with no siblings and no parents. Lydia did not outlive her mother by much, passing in 1878 at age 65. It boggles my mind to think of those parents, burying one child after another.
The Baldwin family was another that suffered through the untimely deaths of the children before their parents. Davis and Amy Baldwin, born in 1777 and 1786, respectively, would see two of their four children die, and those deaths came just a little more than nine months apart. Edmund died Dec. 14, 1838, at age 21, while Algernon died Sept. 30, 1839, at age 28. The last two Baldwin siblings, listed as Orin and I.D.W., would outlive their parents, but also died close together. Orin died on April 5, 1889. I.D.W. died 21 days later, on April 26. Perhaps an illness swept through the area, taking the brothers in its wake.
The last story I unearthed in Egremont is not quite so tragic, but rather more mysterious than the others. It involves William H. Belcher, who was born in 1840 and died June 16, 1909, at age 69. William is buried with two wives. The first was the former Frances Margnet, who was 11 years younger than William, not out of the ordinary for the time. She died young, however, in 1885 at the age of 35. William then married the former Phoebe Miller, who was even younger -- six years younger than Frances, in fact. Again, Phoebe died before her time, at age 44 in 1901.
This situation created questions for which I have no answers. For example, if Phoebe had married William the same year in which Frances died, she would have been 28. That's pretty old for a first-time bride. Had she perhaps been married and lost a spouse of her own? I can't know that. Also, did Frances and Phoebe know each other? Was it difficult for Phoebe to be wife No. 2?
The tiny Mount Everett Cemetery turned out volumes of fodder for my musings. I hope you will follow me as I continue my wanderings, looking to see what new tales more old cemeteries will bring.
Assistant Editor Judith Fairweather can be reached at
jfairweather@advocateweekly.com or 413-663-7942, ext. 234.