Grove Street Cemetery dates from 1796, but includes tombstones moved from the earlier colonial burial ground in New Haven. (For more information about the history of the cemetery see Grove Street Cemetery.) The cemetery borders the Yale campus and as you would expect, there are many presidents of the university buried there. But there are also many other graves of historic interest: Eli Whitney, Noah Webster, Charles Goodyear (inventor of vulcanized rubber), and prominent early American scholars, divines, merchants and soldiers.
El Jefe and I have walked around here before, when Portia was an undergraduate. But we didn't realize then that some of my direct ancestors were among the colonial settlers of New Haven and a couple of other neighboring towns. So we thought we'd see if we could find any evidence of them in the cemetery.
The entrance is marked by this Egyptian Revival Gate--very Middle Eastern looking.
El Jefe and I have walked around here before, when Portia was an undergraduate. But we didn't realize then that some of my direct ancestors were among the colonial settlers of New Haven and a couple of other neighboring towns. So we thought we'd see if we could find any evidence of them in the cemetery.
The entrance is marked by this Egyptian Revival Gate--very Middle Eastern looking.
The cemetery is landscaped beautifully and there's a lot of effort made to maintain a park-like setting.
El Jefe says that this Sphinx (one of two) was left in the cemetery after the local library was remodeled because no one quite knew what to else to do with them. Perhaps they thought the pair of spinxes went well with the Egyptian Revival Gate?
Eureka! We found it--a tombstone of one of the ancestors. It doesn't mark a grave, because the stones were moved away from the old common burial ground on the town green when the cemetery was created. It is more readable than most of them, and has the flying death's head ornament on the top which was the symbol of the soul going up to God.
Double Eureka! We also found this bonus ancestral grave of a woman who was related to the family. She's buried in her husband's family plot.
I wish that I had planned a drive up to Salem to see where my many times great-grandmother was executed as a witch during the infamous witchcraft trials of the colonial period. It was just too much to squeeze into this quick trip. I have to wonder if this is why both Portia and I wrote major research papers on the Salem witch trials when we were in college. Even though we did not know then that we were related to one of the "witches."
~cue Twilight Zone theme music~
How cool to find ancestral graves! I think it's like a more concrete version of scrapbooking (pun intended).
ReplyDeleteThat sphinx is very cool.
Visiting Pere Lachese in Paris hooked me on the fascination of marble orchards. This one you visited is really pretty.
OK, this is SO COOL. Who was your executed-as-a-witch ancestor? There was a time wen I obsessed over every detail of the Salem witch trials.
ReplyDeleteI think it is fitting (in a very positive way) that there are sphinxes in a cemetery in which lie the descendants of Salem "witches" sought by their Presby descendent. I love the way family stories evolve. Perhaps Beatrice has a sacred feline friend in her ancestry.
This is just like being somewhere with Rachel. *grins*
ReplyDeleteSo how did Connecticutt Yankees come to find a home in Texas? My New England ancestors(mostly Massachusetts) headed west, not south...My one Connecticutt ancestor was a Loyalist(and Jewish) who wound up in Canada after the American Revolution. He was a spy and a privateer. My uncle has his Letter of Marque. Eventually he converted to Anglicanism. Real interesting guy!
ReplyDeletePresbyG
My Great Grandmother Kruse's (Holmes) family came to Missouri from Plymouth. I’ve identified 100s of ancestors mostly in Plymouth but also in Boston, Salem, Martha’s Vineyard, and in Connecticut.
ReplyDeleteOf particular interest here is my ancestor Rev. John Cotton (1585-1652), the Senior minister in Boston from 1632-1652. His daughter Mary married Increase Mather and had Cotton Mather. He presided over witch trials in Salem. Your ancestor and my ancestor’s cousin may have known each other … at least briefly. :)
GG--
ReplyDeleteMy ancestor was Sarah Averill Wilds, of Topsfield, Mass. She was condemned in the second trial at Salem Mass. on June 30, 1692. She was hanged on July 19, 1692. She refused to confess she was a witch and maintained her innocence until the end as did the 4 other women executed on that day with her.
Presby G--
The family kept moving west--to New York state, to Michigan, to Kansas and then to Texas in the 1890's where they put down permanent roots.
Mike--
ReplyDeleteCotton and Sarah would never have dreamed that someday their descendants would meet over the internet, would they?
Your "witch" ancestor was hung shortly after my relation, Bridgette Bishop, who was the first to die in our country's final (I hope) attempt to rule by Theocracy. She was the wife of the son of the brother of my ancestor, James Bishop, 1st Leiut. Gov. of Connecticut, one of the original settlers of New Haven. James is also buried in Grove Street Cem., having also been moved from The Green. He has a barely readable monument with his son Samuel.
ReplyDeleteSmall world, eh?