USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. II > Part 52
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Sylvia (Tift) Stevens, and Ezekiel Kellogg. These people, withi one exception, passed their lives in the same neighborhood within a radius of less than two miles. There must have been something in their mode of living or their occupations which gave them a multiplicity of days ; or perhaps it was the strong and health- giving breeze that constantly swept their little valley, lying almost midway between the Green and White Mountains, that brought to them the elixir which prolongs life beyond the threescore years and ten allotted to man.
In the graveyard at North Littleton, as in the others established in 1792, the name of the person who first received burial within its limits is unknown. There are several ancient mounds or de- pressions which mark the ground where slumbers the dust of some man or woman long since forgotten. In one of these neglected spots reposes all that is mortal of one among those for whom the first sod in this abode of the dead was turned. The earliest known grave is that of Enoch, son of Ebenezer Pingree, who departed this life in 1796.
Near this grave lie the remains of Ebenezer Pingree, Esq., and hard by are those of James Williams, Esq. These men were friends from youth, born in neighboring towns (Methuen and Andover, Mass.). They- married sisters by the name of Merrill, and brought their brides into the wilderness at the north part of the town, and they are numbered among our pioneers. They were men of note in their day and generation, and served their town in many positions of honor and trust. The first was a justice of the peace, and in this capacity acted as magistrate for his townsmen; the other having a tendency for military rather than civil affairs, though honored in both, became the commander of a company and major of his regiment.
Though thus closely related, their children pursued their journeys through the world by widely diverging paths. The descendants of Esquire Pingree were dowered with intellectual tendencies, aspirations in which the ideal dominated the practical, and physi- cal constitutions so frail that nearly all fell victims to consumption before they had lived out their allotted years. The children of the major were not burdened with ideas in regard to ethical questions, were intensely practical, and had frames that withstood the strain through many years of strenuous devotion to money-getting. But time eventually brought the cousins to the same temple, where they laid aside their broken hopes and sorrows or their treasure and greed to enter into their eternal reward. Which brought to the judgment-seat the richest fruitage from this troublous world ?
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Within the same enclosure rests what is mortal of Henry Bemis and Capt. Naboth Lewis, soldiers in the War of the Revolution, and Joseph W. Morse, who were among the pioneers of Littleton. Near them is a stone bearing the name of Ira Caswell, a grandson of the doughty captain. Here too lie the remains of "Hon. Nath. Rix, Jr.,"' and those of his father.
The graves in this ancient burial-place number little more than a hundred, and here too are found several who reached a great age ; Parker Cushiman, who was born before the Revolution, en- gaged in a foray into Canada in the War of 1812, and much to his regret, for his political opinions were strong, lost, through the fell stroke of death, the opportunity to cast his vote a second time for General Grant for President, and. at the same time round a century of existence. He died June 4, 1872. Had he lived until December 31 of that year, he would have been one hundred years of age. William Fisk was ninety-four, and Amos Wallace ninety- one, when they had numbered the years of their mortal pilgrimage.
The people at the north end, if we are to judge from these records, were not much given to manifesting their grief through the medium of the epitaph. They have, however, in a few instances indulged in this practice, and in most cases in the conventional form. That on the gravestone of Major Williams is the verse beginning, " My living friends as you pass by," and that of his consort, who passed on two years before him, though different, is like unto it in respect to familiarity. Its first line is, " Death is a debt to nature due."
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When Rylan E. Fisk departed this life, 1892, his widow re- corded her sorrow in lines that may be both original and modern, certainly they contain but little of the ancient phraseology. They run thus : -
" He has gone from his dear ones, his child, his wife, Whom he willingly toiled for and loved as his life, Oh God ! how mysterious and how strange are thy ways, To take from us this loved one in the best of his days."
None of the epitaphs graven on stones in this burial-place are from Holy Writ, and but one refers to the Bible. On that erected to the memory of Mary Elizabeth, wife of John A. Eaton, who passed away at the early age of twenty years, is carved a Bible with this verse : -
" The mines of earth no treasure give, That could this volume buy ; In teaching me the way to live, It taught me how to die."
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On the road leading from North Littleton to the village is a small burial-place known as the Wheeler graveyard, taking its name from the neighborhood in which it is located. In it are the remains of several generations of the Wheelers, from Silas the pioneer of 1796 to his descendants of the fourth generation. The pioneer died in 1823, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. The remains of his wife, Sally, repose in an adjoining grave. But two bearing the name of Wheeler now reside in the neighbor- hood where a generation ago hundreds of fruitful acres near "the parting of the roads at the Wheeler place" were tilled by this family. The elders passed on to their reward; their children sought other fields ; the lands were neglected and fell into decay, - for land, like the human body, must be fed in order to live, - and strangers came and possessed them.
Beside the Wheelers and their descendants of another name through the female line, very few people have found their final earthly resting place in this narrow field. Here are gathered some of the children of Amos Town, who lengthened the family name by adding the final "e," and the remains of Samuel Taylor Morse and his wife, who also represent in their lineage the pioneer families of Bemis and Miner, as well as that of the one whose name they bore.
A ramble through these grounds will disclose nothing in the way of epitaphs either quaint or otherwise peculiar. They are as a rule taken from the Scriptures, and inculcate the sound theo- logical doctrines of the early settlers of the town.
For three-fourths of a century the people in the Ammonoosuc valley section of the town buried their dead in the graveyard on the meadows, two miles distant from the village. The grounds were selected at a time when there was not a break in the wilder- ness at the Ammonoosuc Falls, now the centre of population and business activity, and probably on account of the friability of the soil which rendered it particularly adapted for the purpose for which it was to be used. Here are buried many families who once played an important part in the affairs of the town. The names of Gile, Brackett, Robins, Allen, Hoskin, Fairbank, Nurs, Fitzgerald, Sargent, Parker, Curtis, and Thompson are found chiselled on its headstones.
In these narrow beds lie near each other the ashes of the first regular supply and the first settled minister of the Congregational Church of the town. The grave of the Rev. Mr. Hardy is marked by a small stone of slate, on which may still be traced, after eighty- five years of exposure and neglect, this legend : -
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" In Memory of Mr. Nath'l Hardy, A.B. (a candidate for the gospel ministry,) Who died at Littleton 13, Oct. 1819 in the 43 year of his Age."
At the head of the other grave stands a large marble stone where one may read this inscription : -
" Rev. Drury Fairbank, Died Jan. 11, 1853, Æ. 80. Servant of God, well done, Rest from thy loved employ ; The battle fought, the victory won, Enter the Masters joy."
A little to the left of the minister's resting place are those of his wives. Over the first is a stone bearing these lines, evidently prepared by her husband : -
" Beneath this monument rest the remains of Mrs. Lucretia consort of the Rev. Drury Fairbank who died at Plymouth January 29, 1817, aged 41 years. Who can find a virtuous woman ? for her price is far above rubies."
On the stone at the head of the third grave may be read the simple inscription : -
" Sarah Wife of Rev. Drury Fairbank, Died May 21, 1856 Æ. 66."
These ministers of the gospel have as neighbors Deacons Gideon Griggs and Noah Farr.
"Tis but a step from these mounds to that of one beneath which sleeps the dust of Samuel Clay, who was buried here in May, 1840. He was a soldier of the Revolution, as the story on the stone of slate proclaims in a line that fast-gathering lichen will soon render illegible.
Hard by are the graves of a long line of those who bore the
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name of Robins, nineteen in all, the representatives of four gener- ations who were of Littleton. With the exception of those on the headstones of the founder of the family in this town and his wife, the inscriptions are of a simple character, giving in brief form the name, date of death, and age. Douglass Robins died in 1822, at the age of seventy-five. His tombstone bids the reader " de- part," " dry up his tears," and adds the assurance that he " shall lie here till Christ appears." The epitaph of his wife Keziah, which is engraved "Kasia," is the familiar stanza :
" Hail, traveller, as you pass by And view this mouldering clod Prepare yourself for that great day When you must meet your God."
On the stone at the head of the grave of Ebenezer W. Morse, a soldier of the Revolution, is an old-time epigraph which has appeared in many forms ; this version reads : -
" Friends nor physician could not save My mortal body from the grave, Nor can the grave confine it here, When Christ shall call it to appear."
On the gravestone of Maj. Ephraim Curtis is a paraphrase of the line from Pope ; the truth of its application to the old merchant is affirmed by all who knew him : -
" An honest man, the noblest work of God."
On that which marks the grave of his relative, the widow of Dr. Joseph Roby, is recorded this tribute to her virtues : -
" Uniting an amiable disposition with a sound understanding she was con- stant, cheerful and judicious in the discharge of her domestic and social duties, and her life was a practical display of pure religion."
Resting on four substantial granite pillars is a marble slab of ample dimensions which attracts attention for this reason, as well as for the fact that it is the only horizontal memorial in the grounds. It bears this simple legend : -
" Truman Stevens Sept. 3, 1803 Jan. 2, 1885.
Melvina A. Carleton his wife Oct. 25, 1807, May 15, 1887."
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The memorial is in harmony with the character of those it is designed to commemorate ; void of ornament, it has the beauty of simplicity, truth, and strength.
The remains of many persons originally buried here have been removed to Glenwood Cemetery that they might rest with those of their kith and kin. For this reason the casual visitor is apt to be surprised by the absence of many names they would naturally expect to find here. Another cause of surprise is the presence of the remains of so few who reached a great age.
Mary, widow of Nehemiah Hoskins, and ancestress of the numer- ous persons of that name in this section of the State, was the oldest ; she died at the age of ninety-three. Her home had been with her son Elkanah, a soldier of the French and Indian War, a sergeant in the Revolution, and captain of a company of the fol- lowers of Shays in his Rebellion. His widow lived to be eighty- six, having survived her husband twenty-eight years. Their son Salmon was 'ninety at the time of his death, his wife, eighty-four, having departed this life four years before her husband. Mary Thompson, wife of Deacon Asa Lewis, was eighty-nine; Thomas Fuller, eighty-seven ; and Abijah Allen, the first of three genera- tions of the same full name who have owned the Allen farm on Mann's Hill, was eighty-eight; Anna Webster Stevens, ninety- three ; and Stephen Savage, eighty-eight. Not a long list, but it will suffice when we consider that not all the graves in this burial- ground are marked by memorial stones, and the names of many aged persons are included in this class.
This ancient burial-place has been neglected for more than a generation, and though the remains of many of its former occu- pants no longer repose here, there is little ground in this city of the dead that does not shelter "Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire," and the number of unmarked graves must equal those over which surviving friends have raised monuments in the vain hope of perpetuating to succeeding generations the names of those who have gone before. Many of these tokens of affection lie scattered and broken upon the ground ; others, though in place, are crumbling in decay, and over all the blueberry, juneberry, spurge, and cinnamon rose are weaving a fabric of wild beauty which makes it almost impossible to move from one part of the grounds to another to visit these silent abodes of the dead.
The residents of the village had long felt, and to some extent discussed, the necessity of having a cemetery near this centre of activity. The women connected with the "Female Sewing So- ciety " of the Congregational Church were the first to make an
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organized movement to secure such accommodations, and through their agency the lot of land which constitutes the nucleus of Glenwood Cemetery was purchased of Timothy Gile in 1853. This land was rough with a young growth of timber such as usually springs up where the primeval forest has been cut for some years. The decaying trunks of pine and hemlock and boul- ders of various size covered the ground, and the level field ex- tending from the foot of the bluff near Main Street to the Meadow road was a tamarack swamp covered with a heavy growth of that wood, within whose dense and tangled thickets the village urchins cut their long and straight but heavy fishing poles.
Unkept and unimproved as the grounds of the new cemetery were, they received their consecration in November, 1853, when the re- mains of Clara Labaree, daughter of Charles W. and Lucretia Batch- elder Brackett, a young child, whose earthly journey had continued but two years and one day, was laid in the Brackett lot on the brow of the bluff overlooking the winding valley of the Ammonoo- suc and the snow-capped summits of the distant mountains.
It was two years before the women of the Sewing Society per- fected their organization and adopted articles of association.1
The original members of the association 2 were thirty-nine in
1 These articles were as follows :
1. The undersigned hereby associate themselves together under the provisions and by the means provided by the 152nd Chapter of the compiled statutes, for the purpose of acquiring, possessing, improving, and holding in some convenient place in Littleton, suitable grounds and other conveniences for the burial of the dead.
2. Any member of the present female sewing society who has paid an initiation fee, may become a member, by signing the articles of association ; any other person may become a member by signing the articles of association and paying 25 cents annually.
3. Money may from time to time be raised in aid of the purposes of the associa- tion, by vote of two-thirds of the members present, at any regular meeting, but in case of raising money, a proposition to that effect shall be submitted at the next meeting immediately prior to the one at which the vote is taken.
4. The first meeting of this association shall be held at the house of E. Irvin Car- penter, on Wednesday, the fifth day of December and called by three of those who may sign the articles causing public notice to be given at two public meetings pre- vious to the day of the first meeting.
5. The first meeting shall be holden and organized by appointing a presiding offi- cer and clerk.
2 The following is the membership of the association :
Lorana Brackett, Harriet Carpenter, Sarah M. Eastman, C. Adelia Brackett, Lavinia H. Eastman, Sarah Eastman, Almira E. Clark, Adaline S. Kilburn, Caroline A. Weeks, Louise C. Balch, Susan F. Eastman, Grace Campbell, Lucretia L. Batch- elder, Laura (). Tilton, Hannah D. Merrill, Sarah O. Savage, Elizabeth Merrill, Sarah E. Remington, Julia R. Brackett, Ann M. Rounsevel, Lucretia Brackett, Lovisa Bowman, C. L. Kilburn, E. B. Dow, S. J. Rounsevel, M. A. Hadley, L. H .. Eastman, M. A. Bailey, Laura W. Hale, Elizabetlı Clough, Naomi Sanborn, Harriet S. Green, Mrs. Lois Hosmer, Mrs. Sarah J. Shaw, Miss Mary Cleveland, Ruth Foster, Mrs. II. Thayer, Mrs. Josiah Kilburn, and Mrs. S. Wetherell.
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number. They conducted its affairs unaided and with eminent success until 1870, when William J. Bellows, Josiah Kilburn, Cyrus Eastman, C. W. Rand, and M. L. Goold were called to their assistance in important matters relating to acquiring land for an extension of the grounds. These were the first, and for years, the only ones connected with the association.
According to notice, the members of the association met on December 5, 1855, at the house of the Rev. E. Irvin Carpenter, and organized. Mrs. Lorana Brackett presided, and the Rev. Mr. Carpenter acted as clerk.
An adjourned meeting was held January 16, 1856, when a code of by-laws was adopted, the burial-place being named White Mountain Cemetery. The first permanent officers were Mrs. Harriet S. Carpenter, president ; Mrs. L. L. Batchelder, clerk ; Mrs. Almira E. Clark, treasurer ; Mrs. Lorana Brackett, Mrs. Susan F. Eastman, Sarah Eastman, trustees. There is no record of any further important action until May 5, 1870, when nego- tiations were opened with Jedediah Farmer for the purchase of a piece of land adjoining the southwest side of the cemetery, which indicates that the original tract had become insufficient to meet the demand for lots. Josiah Kilburn and Cyrus Eastman con- ducted the negotiations and made the purchase. About the same time the association appropriated $200 to grade and improve the grounds. In 1872 a hearse was bought for the accommodation of those owning lots in the cemetery, which was maintained until June 20, 1894, when it was sold to Wells & Bingham, under- takers. July 14, 1877, the name of the cemetery was changed to Glenwood, and about that time a receiving tomb was built. In 1884 it became apparent that a farther addition to the grounds was necessary, and an attempt was made to purchase a large tract, much of which is now comprised in the Town and Driving Parks ; but terms could not be made that were satisfactory to both parties. Various efforts were made to obtain additional land, but nothing was effected until June 16, 1892, when a proposition, made by the Littleton Driving Park Association, was accepted, which provided that the remainder of the plateau west of the cemetery, and known as Glenwood Annex, be transferred to the Glenwood corporation upon condition that they take down the fence between the two associations and give the lot-owners in the annex all the rights, benefits, and privileges that are now had by the lot- owners in Glenwood, they to pay the officers of the Driving Park Association 50 per cent of the gross receipts from the sale of the lots laid upon the plan made by Ray T. Gile, which are cut by
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the fence, and 75 per cent of the avails of all other land as fast as sold, and no lot to be sold for less than the price marked upon the plan, the association to use their best efforts to make speedy sales.
In September, 1894, the corporation laid a water-pipe into the grounds and put in a fountain. Lovell Taylor, John W. English, and Charles Lovejoy have been the sextons during most of the time since the organization of the association, and it is owing largely to their efficient labor that the rough and unsightly piece of land has been made into the beautiful cemetery where lie our dead.
Nothing in the way of improvements on the land purchased of the town which lies between the northwesterly bound of the original cemetery and its first two extensions and the Waterford road was accomplished until 1903, when the work was placed in charge of Daniel C. Remich, who expended all the funds available for that object in grading and rendering ready for use a number of lots next adjoining the old grounds, in building bank-walls, offsets, setting out trees in the grounds annexed by purchase from the town, and changing the course of the Farr Brook from its winding way through the cemetery, to one of angles fixed by rough stone walls, which destroy all the beauty which the brook once lent to the scene. These extensive improvements are still unfinished, and the women who so long controlled this benefi- cent enterprise have given its management over to men, no longer feeling able to cope successfully with the many difficulties which the conduct of the business of the association entails.
In Glenwood rest the remains of many of the town's historic personages. Among them is Dr. Burns, who came here in 1806 and became the first village physician, and saw the "settlement at the falls of the Ammonoosuc" grow from a hamlet of less than a half-dozen dwellings and a store, to become the largest and most thriving village in all the north country. Here too sleeps his last sleep one who was his pupil, professional associate, and life-long friend, Dr. Adams Moore; near him rest two daughters of Moses Little, who were his consorts, and the monu- ment bears the name of another of the Moore family whose in- scription reads :
" William Adams Killed at the Battle of Fredericksburg Dec. 13, 1862 Æ. 20 yrs. 8 mos. Capt. in 5th Regt. N. H. Vols."
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His mortal remains do not rest here. His dust mingles with that of many comrades in a trench fronting " the stone wall " in the outskirts of the Virginia city.
Near the entrance to the cemetery on the right of the roadway stands the monument erected to the memory of Evarts W. Farr. It bears the following inscription : --
" In Memory of Major Evarts W. Farr, Born Oct. 10, 1840. Died Nov. 30, 1880.
" Captain of Co. G 2ª Regt N. H. V. Lost his right arm at the battle of Williamsburgh, Va. Was promoted Major of the 11th Regt. N. H. V. Served until the close of the war. Was elected a Representative to the 46 Congress and elected to the 47. He fought the battles of his country and aided the councils of the Nation.
" To live in hearts we love is not to die."
In this cemetery lies all that was mortal of a large number of those who enlisted in the war for the Union from this town, as well as many others who became citizens of Littleton after the close of that war and died here.
In a lot adjoining that where lie the remains of Major Farr are those of his personal friend but stern political foe, John G. Sinclair. In these grounds are buried William Brackett, Simeon B. Johnson, Otis Batchelder, Deacon Merrill, Harry and George A. Bingham, John Farr, and many others who helped build the town and whose names and fame still survive the fast vanishing perspective of time.
There is little mortuary poetry engraved on the memorial stones. The few epitaphs are mostly brief lines from the Bible, and there are few, or none, of the doleful, admonitory character so common in the older graveyards.
Here are recorded the names of many persons whose days far exceeded the limit of threescore and ten years. Among the familiar names of those who were more than fourscore when they entered into rest are found those of Josiah Kilburn, Amos Town and his wife Betsey, Jonathan Eastman, Solomon Goodall, and his wife, who was eighty-six ; Solomon Fitch, eighty-seven, his wife was eighty-three; Edmund Carleton, T. A. Edson, Elanson Noble, Jonathan Eastman and his wife Caroline, Dr. Burns, Mrs. Burns, Samuel Goodwin, Nathan Applebee, Thomas White, William Jackson, and Hannah Aldrich were ninety ; Hannah D. Merrill and Joel Bronson were cach ninety-one ; Amos Hubbard,
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ninety-two ; Asa Weller, ninety-four ; Capt. John Pierce, ninety- six, and the record says that Honora Harrington was ninety-seven at the time of her death.
The northeast corner is set apart for the burial of persons without family or strangers in the town, and in this part lie the remains of Sergeants William Seeley and William Stevens, who belonged to the signal corps of the United States Army, and were at the time of their death stationed on Mount Washington. The former met his death in an attempt to descend the mountain railroad.
The Roman Catholic Cemetery is located. in Bethlehem on the road leading from Apthorp to that town, and is about two miles distant from the town building. The land for this cemetery was purchased by the Rev. Father Hurley in 1888, and was consecrated by Bishop Bradley, July 20, 1889. Several interments were made here before that time, but the first marked by a tombstone is that of John Mclaughlin, who departed this life July 1, 1889.
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