USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Fairfield > The old burying ground of Fairfield, Conn. A memorial of many of the early settlers in Fairfield, and an exhaustive and faithful transcript of the inscriptions and epitaphs on the 583 tombstones found in the oldest burying ground now within the limits of Fairfield > Part 7
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" In primitive burials no attempt was made to relieve inexorable fact. The elaborate appliances by which the modern undertaker, high in his art, daintily tempers the gloom-the euphony of the 'casket,' and soothing elegy of preacher, the music and the flowers- were "abominations" that a Puritan grave digger
* "Governors : Haynes. Wyllys, Webster. and Leet lie buried at Hartford without a monument." Trumbull's His. of Conn .. Ed. 1797, VI. pp. 245.
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thought sinful even to dream about. The coffin was a domestic product, sturdy shoulders formed the hearse ; and a convenient enclosure by the road side was often the hasty place of sepulture. Ministers did not always attend the burials, and religious services generally were shunned as savoring too much of prelatical practices, and tending to conduct the mind back to the forsaken ritual of the Church of England. Mourning found no outward expression ; silk, crape, or even bombazine, were out of the question, had they not been despised as badges of a useless and sinful custom. Our fathers were more ascetic than æsthetic; funeral trappings were as repugnant as royal pageantry; "the Puritan prostrated himself in the dust before his maker, but he set his foot on the neck of his king;" he worshipped neither dumb nor speaking idols of clay ; he made no fetich of the dead.
"Indeed, there was little time to mourn, his dead buried, he turned a face of flint toward activities that were uncompromising; the dead had died in a good service and 'the fit way for survivors to honor and lament them was to be true to one another and work bravely for the cause to which dead and living had alike been consecrated.' * This was not indifference, how- ever, a single death in the slender colony was a general calamity ; but his physical condition as well as religion forbade him to cherish anything that would retard the great cause he had resolutely determined to advance.
"But increasing fortune and leisure, as the colony prospered, brought in their train the desire for funeral display and cemetery ornamentation. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, monument making began to be a respected art, as well as a trade worth following in the colonies, and we hear of a dignified Puritan Governor of our state who did not refuse the hand of his daughter to a master of the new craft; there began also a 'renaissance' in arts relating to coffin upholstery and obsequies generally. The distribution of gloves, rings, and scarfs at funerals was a notable custom introduced, and was carried to such excess that town authorities complied with the fashion by supplying these articles, at the town's expense, at the burial of paupers. At the obsequies of the wife of a famous Governor, more than one thousand pairs of gloves were dispensed among the attendants. + This, and similar practices prevailed to
* Palfrey's His. of N. E. VII. pp. 43.
t Felt's Customs of N. E.
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such an extent in early Connecticut, that the Legislature passed a law modifying the usage, and even the Colonial Congress was appealed to for its suppression.
" The sole instance of burial procedures in ancient Fairfield, that my friend, the 'oldest inhabitant' can resur- rect, is the following :-- ' It was a hot day, the distance long, the bier carried on tressels, weighty ; half-way one of the bearers, also a heavy weight, cried out : ' set him down, he's heavy,' and pulling a flask from a convenient pocket, all imbibed fresh courage and moved solemnly on. Rather an incongruous mixture of good and evil spirits truly ; but as we repress a smile, let us remember that it tallied with the olden custom that, with no thought of irreverence, placed the ever-ready decanter on the hospitable side-board in close proximity to the well- thumbed scriptures.
" Three easily distinguished grades of stones in the Old Burying Ground mark the progress in mortuary usages. The first comprises the crude ones which differ but slightly from those which supplied the fences of the period; their inscriptions, as a rule, are confined to briefest statement, and in many instances simply give the initals and year, as is the case with that referred to as S. M. The second grade has larger stones and hint of the offices of sculptor and poet. Here and there one meets with an oddity that trespasses on his gravity; for example, this poetic effusion :
' Death like an overflowing stream Sweeps us away ; our life's a dream, An empty tail ; a morning flower, Cut down and withered in a hour.'
The original way in which the colonial poet spells tale, (tail). instinctively calls up thoughts of Mr. Darwin, and invites a digression to which I only yield the passing remark that possibly some old errors were less gross than those of our period of evolution. A curious epitaph from an adjacent town seems to ask admittance here by way of comparison ; it is one that a deacon, with a unique idea of poetic justice, placed upon the tomb of his imprudent help-mate :
' Here lies cut down like unripe fruit, The wife of Deacon Amos Shute ; She died of drinking too much coffee, Anny Dominy seventeen forty.'
This would severely test that optimism that 'finds ser- mons in stones and good in everything.'
" The third grade includes those of blue slate, free- stone and marble, many of them no doubt imported
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from England, and are embellished with the familiar weeping willows, cherubs and death's heads. Those of slate have a decided preference, and as they resist the salty atmosphere of the locality, and long retain a neat appearance, there was good reason for the choice; they are especially free from moss or other sign of decay, and tell their story of mortality with a clearness that com- mends them to the antiquary with more curiosity than leisure or perchance of patience. A diminished verbiage, too, is a pleasing feature of this grade, although an occa- sional grandiloquent inscription (as in all cemeteries ancient or modern,) offends the nicer perceptions. It was Charles Lamb who, when strolling with his sister through an old-world churchyard where fulsome eulogies were profuse, slyly asked: 'Mary, where do all the naughty ones lie ? '-The moral is easily resurrected.
" There is, however, comparatively little to suggest invidious distinctions in our Old Burying Ground, as the thoughtful visitor questions these weather beaten senti- nels, of the days that are past. They are for the most part ranged in rows with little regard to family or other exclusiveness. The same peculiarity will be observed in the widely separated burial places in Southport, Green's Farms and Greenfield. His part in the stern drama over, a sheltered nook near the homestead, or next place in the neighboring rows, shut the actor out from public gaze. More formal observances in this regard, as in others, followed the erection of the second edifice of the Prime Antient Church which, attracting temporal and spiritual matters to this center, the old became the prin- cipal ground for interments.
" Later on, at Mill Plain, when Trinity Church lifted its spire heavenward, there clustered about its holy precincts the tombs that 'sadly furnish forth' the salient part of your pious work to day. The small plot that was once thought consecrated ground has been ruthlessly ploughed over and under; tradition points a wavering finger towards it; memory loses itself mid the rattle and the roar of the iron wheels of progress. The seven stones rescued-venerable monitors that silently told off the successive generations during a century and a half, that had been torn from their stations, thrust out in the cold, left to perish with forgotten rubbish, are all that is left to tell that Trinity churchyard existed. You gather them again to their kindred, and retrace with the warm touch of humanity their almost forgotten legends. Truly has one prophesied who said : 'conceal your last
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resting-place where local history keeps no record, and where tradition even cannot betray you; yet accident shall at last stumble upon your unknown tomb.'
" The most conspicuous of these rescued memorials is that of Abraham Adams, 1716, and on it are these re- proachful words: 'worthy founder of and benefactor to Trinity Church.' He was an early settler of consider- able fortune, and, as the stone indicates, of large practi- cal piety, and lived on the spot where the homestead of Deacon Morehouse stands, at Barlow's Plains. A relic of equal worth, and pointing a similar reproof, is the stone of John Applegate, 1712. He too, was an early planter; and the Congregational Society had substantial evidence of his christian beneficence. The least preserved of these tomb-waifs whose neglect for a score of years is cause for amazement, not to say shame, is the one in- scribed to Mrs. Esther Lord, date not legible, but prob- ably 1730. She was a descendant of the noted settler Andrew Ward, was endowed with rare qualities of mind and person, and married successively, four men of wealth and position. Tradition reports her a widow that was widely respected, whose abundant means were dispensed with an open hand. Why it happens that her numerous descendants have permitted the sacrilege indicated by the neglected stone is a problem I will not attempt to solve. Sharing the same problem are the remaining four of the seven recovered from the destroyed burial ground of Mill Plain, and rehabilitated day; Rebecca Brown, 1730; Benjamin Lines, 1732; · Avis Applegate, 1716 ; David Jennings-aged ten months, 1735. Grouped now on the Old Burying Ground as yet sacred from plough or railway, with a substantial cenotaph newly perpetuating their memories; pilgrims turning toward these shrines may recognize, perhaps in the child's tablet, a long missed link in the family chain, which your re- building has restored.
" Of the fathers that lie in our ancient cemetery, those of primary interest are the early ministers-central figures of the group that stood round the cradle of civil and religious liberty. Rev. John Jones was the first. He was a native of Wales, was educated and episcopally ordained in England, and came, with other nonconform- ing clergymen of the national church, to this Country in 1635. With him are associated the rude building in which our fathers, armed as for battle, assembled at the beat of the drum, for legislative purposes as well as for worship; the lectures given in the meeting-house, or from
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cabin to cabin, which were often emphasized by exam- ples that pillory, stocks, or whipping-post afforded; and all that stirred the thought and life of primitive Fairfield. It was he that attended the execution of Goody Knapp * who was condemned as a witch, and tendered the poor victim such kindly ministrations as his conscience per- mitted towards one whom the gloomy fanaticism of the time had shut out from christian consolation. His eru- dition gave him honorable mention in Ecclesiastical Annals, f and he died, generally revered, in 1665. No stone marks his grave. Rev. Samuel Wakeman was called by the vote of the town-as was the custom-in 1665, the second edifice was built during his pastorate, and when he died in 1692, it was resolved in town meet- ing 'his death is for a lamentation unto us.' Rev. Joseph Webb called ' provided he had orthodox views on baptism,' in 1694, was an original Fellow of Yale College, wrote the earliest records extant of this society, and, at his death in 1732, was mourned as 'a pillar of the churches' that had fallen. Rev. Noah Hobart, a noted theologian, was pastor here from 1732 to the time of his death, 1773; and the third edifice was erected in his time. Rev. Andrew Elliot, Jr. was called in 1774, and remained until 1805. It was during his pastorate that the meeting house, together with all the principal buildings of the town was burned by the British, July 8th, 1779, į and his account of that terrible day is, to my mind, the most truthful and graphic in history. Although Mr. Eliot's ability commanded a more remunerative field, (i.e. financially,) he worked on here at a salary of three hundred dollars per annum, and as is stated, 'hard to get, at that.' He lived on Holland Hill, and used to walk down in all weathers, not only to lead the meetings, but to build with his own hands the fires in the great wood stoves of the period. It is such practical piety and broad usefulness as this we should remember when we incline to speak flippantly of the cant and narrowness of these Puritans. Stalwart and picturesque, they form a noble background to our history; their unquestioned purity of motive, and unbending endurance in the cause of civil and religious freedom have, more than any other human force shaped our National life. As one has well
* See Vol. II. New Haven Colony Records for account of this tragedy.
t See Sprague's Ecclesiastical History; Felt's Annals of American Pulpit, and a Paper by the writer in Fairfield County Historical Society's Collection.
# It is but fair to state that General Tryon's troops neither purposely de- stroyed records, or mutilated the tombs. Whatever re-written history may call them ; they were not iconoclasts.
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said : 'there were canting Puritans, but Puritanism was not canting hypocrisy.'
" The prejudice against the Book of Common Prayer abated early here. In 1707, Episcopalians held regular services, and the honored dust of two of their clergy, peacefully mingles with that of their Puritan brothers in the old common ground. Rev. James Sayre, an able and sincere divine who, though thought to sympathize with the enemy in 1779, vainly endeavored to stay the de- structive hand of Gen'l Tryon, and who preserved much of the property of his neighbors, though his own shared the burning. Rev. James Lamson, an efficient and worthy worker for his church, who was content to lay his bones in the conservative field that eliminates sects and knows no distinctions among the children that share the long rest in its bosom.
"With a brevity that is reluctant but compulsory, let me recall something of the laymen that have peace- ful abode there. Hon. Ebenezer Silliman heads an illustrious line, that claims a large tribute in this rebuild- ing. Born here in 1708, he graduated. at Yale College, was for 27 consecutive years Representative at the Leg- islature, and for 23 years Judge of the Superior Court. He was conspicuous in public life for nearly half a cen- tury and commanded universal respect and esteem in both public and private life. He lived on Holland Hill, died in 1775, and on his tomb is this suggestive epigram : 'I have said ye were gods, but ye shall all die like men.' General Gold Silleck Silliman, his son, was born in Fair- field, 1732, graduated at Yale, 1752, was made Gener- al in 1776, and served with distinction in the Revolution; an honored descendant is Benjamin Silliman, L.L.D., the well known professor of Chemistry and Minerology at Yale College; and whose absence from 'the pious work of rebuilding the tombs of our ancestors,' (his own words.) is occasioned solely by the ' strenuous rain' of to day. Col. David Burr, who has handed down a record too familiar to require word of mine, was the progenitor of the families that uphold the good old name in every quarter of our town, and with due regard, a charactistic reminiscence. When ye Prime Antient Church was built, he generously offered to paint the pulpit, and the follow- ing permission is officially recorded : 'whereas, Col. Burr has offered to paint the pulpit in the meeting house at his own expense, he has liberty to do the same, pro- vided it be of a light stone color.'* Captain Smedley who,
* Old Records of Fairfield.
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when Fairfield numbered among her ancient glories, that of being a Port of Entry, was Collector here,-the Custom House still stands on Greenfield Hill. He lived where have successively been the homes of David Barlow, 'the ci-devant farmer ;' Judge Osborne,-the family name dots the old yard-and Henry J. Beers, the present occupant. Major Samuel Beers, grandfather of your speaker, held two important public offices, was brave and efficient ; and, as filial tradition almost daily accen- tuates, was 'every inch a man.' David Judson, whose place was first in church and in town activities ; . and who founded the original library here, which, with its one hundred and fifty volumes-more select than numerous,-had its revenue from a yearly tax upon its members of twenty-five cents.
" Near the gate of our favored 'Gods Acre ' is the slab inscribed to Elizabeth Rowland, widow of Andrew Rowland, Esq., and daughter of Gov. Fitch. She was a noble type of the heroic women of Revolution times, and grandmother of several of the name, whose public spirit and private worth now command respect and esteem in our town. These too, stay our hurried notes. Col. Nathan Gold, Deputy Governor of Connecticut, from 1708 to 1724, and ancestor of Captain John Gould of revered memory-the name being properly Gold. Capt. Abraham Gold, who, here ' takes his rest with his martial cloak around him;' he was brought down from Ridge- field dead on his war-horse, and no braver name responds to the roll-call of this field of honor. Here sleeps well Col. Andrew Burr, who fought well in the French war. Peter Perry, whose five sons honoring various professions in the Country, used to have annual reunions in New York City ; and one of whose descendants enjoys the picturesque home in Mill Plain where the old mill and busy stream make pleasant music together. Judge Jon- athan Sturges, of whose children's children the health and progress of our town speak in substantial eulogy. Hezekiah Sturges, whose home shared the burning in 1779, but who built another with timbers cut and brought down, mostly by himself, from a distant wood. The new building he devoted chiefly to the use of the Episcopalians, their edifice being destroyed ; it stood where now an elm shades the residence of Miss Mary Nicholls, in Mill Plain; and I recall the act and the actor with reverent gratitude. Hezekiah Nicholls, ancestor of Deacon Samuel Nicholls, who for many years held pub- lic office here. Capt. Eleazor Bulkley, who commanded
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a ship, and also high regard in old-time Commercial circles; his account of the landing of the British troops on our beach is related with the vividness of an eye-witness. Henry Marquand, a Jeweler from the Isle of Guernsey is identified with one of the precious stones of the cluster that shines anew to day. He was ancestor of Henry and Frederick Marquand, whose names are conspicuously engraved on the large charities of our day. The respected name of Barlow is often met as we trace the silent families which mingle in this common household of the great leveler, and the name has also an enduring distinction in the adjacent familiar plains. Capt. Walter Thorp has here his long watch on the eternal voyage; he was claimed as an upright citizen of Black Rock, but posterity claims him as a type of the olden-time gentleman.
"Our historic Academy, once a noted educational power in the land, bids me pause at the names of its founders as I check the two and a half century way-bills of Fairfield's dead : David Burr, Gershom Burr, Jonathan Sturges, Isaac Jennings, Lathrop Lewis, David Allen, Ebenezer Dimon, David Judson, Stephen Fowler, Nath- an Beers, Samuel Penfield, Andrew Wakeman, James Knapp, Eleazer Bulkley, Andrew Eliot, John Morehouse, Isaac Marquand, Joseph Squire, Gershom Sturges --
- as we rehabilitate their tombs may we be inspired with something of their good old fashioned virtues and activ- ities. The medical faculty have honorable representation in Doctors Francis Forgue, and Thomas Hill-their pathies are forgotten in the eclectic sympathies of this commemoration. And let us not forget the negro, the poor slave who died in the cause of freedom, and is here forever emancipated, whose memory lives, though tradition, even, has forgotten his name. Others there are, that deserve a volume of unaffected eulogy, but the waning hours forbid their briefest histories; let us include all in the apostrophe of our Centennial poet : * ' Ruthless hand of the spoiler preserve their renown, From restless improvement these monuments spare,
Let them pass the old tales to posterity down, And time make the trust his perpetual care.'
" And now, my friends, permit in closing a brief retrospect. The 8th of July, two years ago, found our usually staid town confronting the stir and bustle of a grand holiday. It was a jubilant day. It was accom- panied by the clangor of bells, streaming flags, the ban- * Rev. James K. Lombard, whose poem of Unquowa is one of the finest that the Centennial spirit has evoked.
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quet, the hum of a multitude, the dignity of State. The wisdom of the historian, * the glow of the poet, the grace of the orator.of that day, lifted us from the con- templation of a disaster into an area of triumph and rejoicing. To day finds us continuing the theme-the ashes of our fathers, but with graver accessories. The bell moderates its tone, the assemblage take on some- thing of the gravity that a perilous environment made habitual to our sires. The music is voiced in a key more attuned to whisperings of the old homestead, the old un-revised Bible, the old Heaven-with its old re- verse reality, the old old story of mortality. Shadowy multitudes crowd the green, its trees wave only leafy banners : our dignity assumes no borrowed robes. The historian and the poet do not lend their inspirations to the humbler occasion ; the magnetic words of the orator give place to the gentle benediction that floats from yonder oaks : Sursum Corda ! +
" And we ' lift up our hearts , to all the spirit voices that tell of a useful walk in these fair streets from that fairer land. It is well that we single out the cultured, the illustrious, as standards toward which to bend our lives ; but as we turn to contemplate that old silent city, dis- tinctions are lost in a common solicitude.
" There, they lie ranged in common ; side by side as they stood shoulder to shoulder in life. Side by side with mounds that speak and tablets yet eloquent are crumbling bits of stone and earth that make no sign. Who shall say as he treads this hallowed ground, beneath which part sleep those most worthy of homage? the very spot your foot presses may be the dust of the titled leader, or that of the nameless negro who, in a common patriotism, disputed with blood the historic lane that borders this crowded field.
" Keep its old memories green, guard tenderly its precious dust ; and as we bid a neighborly adieu, take home and make home better for its ever new teachings. Not the least of its lessons is, that he who does his best, ranks with the greatest, who can do no more; who waits upon the high behests of his fathers, serves with the noblest. The humblest sharer in to day's rebuilding may do his nearest duties so well, that future generations will wreathe his memory with a blessing, though every vestige of the tomb be obliterated.
* Rev. Edward E. Rankin, D.D., compiled the excellent historical address at Fairfield's Centenary.
t On Doctor Osgood's tomb at Oak Lawn Cemetery is his life-motto, Sursum Corda-Lift up your hearts.
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After the principal address, Hon. T. S. Gold, spoke warmly of the personal, and forcibly of the general inter- est in the day's proceedings; and William Jennings, Esq., in a short but dignified speech, summed up the good results which would doubtless ensue in other local- ities from the edifying and timely observances in Fair- field. A most pleasing feature was the singing by the quartette in intelligent sympathy with the sentiment of the occasion; and a little incident, just as the audience prepared to visit the cemetery and witness the unveiling of the newly erected cenotaph, indicated a delicate appreciation of both music and singers. The floral de- sign that had brightened the speaker's table, at a slight touch, fell apart into miniature bouquets which were presented to the ladies and gentlemen, whose chaste inter- ludes had contributed so appreciably to perfect the harmony of the exercises and complete the success of the "rebuilding."
In addition to the extended reports of the Standard and the Farmer, of Bridgeport, and the State press gen- erally, the following summary appeared in the New York Observer :
" REBUILDING THE TOMBS OF OUR ANCESTORS. - The old town of Fairfield, Conn., marked the anniversary of its centennial commemoration, by observances in regard to its old burial-ground, on Friday, the 8th of July. Not- withstanding the rain, the Congregational chapel was well filled. Rev. Mr. Burroughs opened the exercises with prayer, a selected quartette followed with excep- tionally fine vocal music, and Rev. Mr. Lombard, the centennial poet, in a few admirably chosen words spoke warmly of the object of the gathering, and introduced the speaker of the day, Mr. Wm. A. Beers.
" In an address outlining the traditions and authen- tic history of the old ground-it dates back to 1639,- Mr. Beers modestly but fully mastered his subject. He left little pertinent unsaid. His address appears at length in the local papers. The salient feature of the occasion was the unveiling of a substantial cenotaph newly perpetuating seven stones dating from 1716 to 1724, which, long sadly neglected, were recovered from a destroyed ground 'ploughed over and under' at Mill
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