Platypus of Truth

Poor Josiah Shelton has proved a bit of a puzzle for me in recent days. The only note I can find on him exists in The Families of James Shelton of McMinn County, Tennessee and his Father Roderick Shelton Buncombe County, North Carolina and their Antecedents  by Arthur Paul Shelton . Arthur Paul Shelton lists Josiah Shelton as the son of Samuel Shelton and Abigail Nichols Shelton and says that he was rumored to be a Revolutionary War veteran (interesting because the Sheltons of Ripton were Loyalists who refused to take up arms for either side). It gives his deathdate as 19 March 1777, cause of death as Smallpox, and says that he was buried in Southford (which now seems to be a part of Southbury and very close to Josiah's place of residence in Ripton which is now called Shelton). The stone in the picture, however, resides at Long Hill Burial Ground in Shelton CT. The stone itself makes no bones about the fact that it is a grave marker and not a memorial tablet: here lies the body ....

Our little stories are all part of larger stories. This is the grave of Josiah Shelton. He died in 1777 of the Smallpox. The flag by his grave indicates that he was a military veteran. Smallpox decimated the Continental Army on several occasions. These incidents were part of a massive outbreak that racked the North American continent from 1775 until 1782 killing over 100,000 people including Josiah Shelton of Ripton (now Shelton) Connecticut. I came across Josiah's grave last summer while I was looking up other members of the Shelton family. This summer, I picked up the book Pox Americana  by Elizabeth A. Fenn about the massive Variola outbreak at the end of the 18th century. As I was reading, the odd note "died of the smallpox" on Josiah's grave came back to mind. A quick look back at the photo confirmed that he died in 1777, during the early years of the epidemic. Given that smallpox was killing so many in the army, the odd note on his grave about his cause of...

Captain Beach(1726-1817) and his wife Charity (d. 1809) were two of the first citizens of Shelton (Ripton or Huntington at the time) to have their portraits painted.  The originals are kept in the vault of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.  Unlike the Loyalist Shelton family, Captain Beach took up arms against the British Government and saw action under General David Wooster in New York and presumably at Danbury and Ridgefield where Wooster was killed.  His epitaph reads: Unvail thy bosom, faithful tomb, Take this new treasure to thy trust And give these sacred relics room To seek a slumber in the dust. Charity formed a famous trio of friends with the mistress of the famous Shelton “Salt-Box House”, Mary Shelton, and the artistic and highly intelligent Hepzibah Hawley.  Recording family reminiscences, Jane de Forest Shelton tells us that Charity, true to her name, took the newly-wedded Mary under ...

The Freemasons are well represented in most nineteenth century cemeteries and Shelton is no exception.  One reason for this is that the Free Masons used to guarantee their members burial and a tombstone.  In some cases this produced markers of unusual magnificence.  This particular example features a host of symbols including the Sun, Moon, All-Seeing Eye, and the Ark of the Covenant.  The symbol to the left of the arch and beneath the Sun is one I don’t know how to read.  The dead try to tell us things in their tombstones, but often the secret is lost on those of a later generation.  All seek to say “I lived, I mattered”.  This stone caught my eye with its strangeness.  How many others in the cemetery did I pass over without a thought? As for my name and my father’s name, why do you ask?  As the generations of leaves on the trees, so are the generations of the sons of men.

A word or two remains to be said about the Reverend Jedidiah Mills , the "first and faithful minister of the Gospel of Christ at Ripton".  My earlier post neglected to pieces of local lore about the good Reverend (who in an ironic twist was often called "the priest" while his Anglican opposite, the Rev. Newton, was called "parson") noted by Ripton's great historian, Jane de Forest Shelton in her master-work  The Saltbox House . The first anecdote about Reverend Mills concerns the French and Indian War.  Apparently, when news of the British Victory came by errand-rider to the village green, the Reverend was in the middle of a baptism.  The ceremony paused for a moment of general celebration, but when the elderly Reverend went back to the baptism his mind was slow to follow: he accidentally christened the baby "Victory".  The name stuck, and was even passed on to a younger cousin. The second anecdote has an odd personal connection.  When ...

Henry E. Plumb (1824-1906) was a citizen of Monroe Connecticut and inventor of a new hay elevator and carrier .  This isn't surprising since the 1880 census records his occupation as "Farmer".  The witness to his patent, David Wells, is buried in the same cemetery (East Village Cemetery).  There is an interesting significance here to be teased out since the businessman who endowed the local library was named David Wells Plumb (1808-1892).  David Wells Plumb's mother was Urania Wells (1784-1862).  Given the location and the names, there must be some connection between Henry E. Plumb the farmer who ended up wealthy enough to afford a set of rather elaborate tombstones for himself and his second wife (his first wife, Catherine Elijah d. 1854 aged 29 years, is also buried elsewhere in the cemetery) and David Wells Plumb. the businessman whose dream it was for Shelton to have its own public library.  I haven't been able to find it so far, but if you discover ...

The final curtain falls over a neo-classical funerary urn worthy of Eteocles. The Sheltons, as befitted one of the first families of a Connecticut hill town, produced numerous "doctors of physik" over the years.  With epidemic disease being a common place, many of these doctors' ends were less than enviable. This is the modestly-ornate grave of Doctor William Shelton (1767-1819).  Dr. Shelton graduated from Yale, a mere morning's ride away from home, in 1788 and took up the scalpel in 1790.  The official doctorate didn't come until 1817, two years before he was cut down by the typhus fever of 1819 at the age of 52.  An inscription at the base tells us that the stone was commissioned by his surviving children "to the memory of the best of fathers".  With a Yale degree, I am sure that there were other places William Shelton might have gone.  Instead, he chose a life of service to the community he was raised in and died as he lived.  That's worthy...

The Grave of Agur and Abigail Shelton This is the grave of Agur and Abigail Shelton.  It can be found near the downtown area of the town that shares their family name.  This is, I believe, the oldest burial ground in the community and the bones of Lieutenant Daniel Shelton are laid to rest nearby.  Agur is a generation or two removed from Daniel as his death date testifies: June 24, 1845.  The style of Agur and Abigail's tomb, marble rather than slate with a weeping willow and urn instead of the winged death's head, show not only a change in date but a change in culture.  Gone is the stark Puritan reminder that death comes for us all and a more euphemistic Neo-Classicism has taken its place.  Along with added wealth and sophistication comes a few little flourishes that mark tomb stones from the early and mid-nineteenth century.  Abigail's inscription is enriched by the note that she was "the daughter of the late Rev. Mr. Newton" and that she "died ...

Aunt Mary's Grave We all look for role models.  Sometimes we find them in a parent.  Other times it's an uncle or an aunt.  Jane DeForest Shelton, author of The Saltbox House , found her's in Marietta Smith, "Aunt Mary" for short. Aunt Mary's mother, the beautiful and vivacious Glory-Anah Shelton, had been the talk of the town in her day.  She'd made a good, if belated, match in merchant James Smith.  Smith's connections brought Glory-Anah a stone house across the water in Derby and an imported China tea-set that was a nine-day wonder.  A sick mother brought both the Smiths back to the old Saltbox house in the White Hills of Huntington and Glory-Anah never really wanted to move back.  Her husband died and there she sat and aged with only her daughter, Marietta, to care for her.  Marietta, or "Aunt Mary", had one chance to get out that came in the form or a certain Southern gentleman.  The prospects for a happy marriage were strong, bu...

This is the grave of Reverend Jedidiah Mills and his wife, Abigail. Revered Mills served for 32 years as "the first and faithful minister of the Gospel of Christ at Ripton" until his death at the age of 79 in the year 1776.  Though the graveyard Reverend Mills and his wife are buried in is now adjacent to Saint Paul's Episcopal Church, Mills was a Congregationalist and served at the Puritan church that once occupied the spot where the gas station now stands until it was removed to the Victorian Gothic structure across the Green.  Mrs. Mills' epitaph as "the amiable consort" of her husband is darkened by the addition that she died "a lingering and painful death".  Though the final portion of the stone is obscured by weeds, it gives assurance to the reader that the "happy pair" are now united in heaven. I helped lead a group of seniors on a trip to Italy a few years back and we visited one of the catacombs in Rome.  We were with two o...

Things are made to endure in the Shire, passing from one generation to the next.  There has always been a Baggins at Bag End and there always will be. This is a memorial plaque dedicated to the Bulkley Family.  It stands in the same cemetery as the graves of Lewis, Minerva, and Nancy Shelton and Annie J. Hinman.  The Bulkleys and the Sheltons intertwined at numerous points of their respective family trees and the name "Nancy Shelton" recurs several times (though none of them are Lewis and Minerva's daughter).  The plaque is an testimony to the aristocracy or "old bloods" of New England.  These are the sorts of lineages that mics like my family and other new arrivals were measured against.  This is what it means to have "roots" in the community.  What can drifters like us throw in the balance against almost 400 years on this side of the Atlantic and another 800 on the other side?  We may be descended from Brian Boru, but isn't every Irish-Ameri...

There are many beautiful places in the world.  I've stood in San Marcos in Venice, Saint Peter's in Rome, Saint Patrick's and Trinity in New York, Westminster Abbey, Salisbury Cathedral, and heard Easter service in London's Saint Paul's.  If you asked me, however, where I've felt the sublime, it would be as the evening sunlight is falling over the farms of White Hills.  This little baptist church is tucked away there on a small side road.  It hasn't been in use for a hundred years.  The burial ground is still active, however, and an association of families keeps the church in good repair and allows it to be used for weddings and other special occasions.  It's rather unremarkable, and one of the most beautiful things I've seen. I suppose a Baptist church didn't stand much chance in a town like Shelton.  The first Sheltons were staunch members of the Church of England and Patriarch of the Family, Lieutenant Daniel Shelton, was a loyalist during...

 One of the Shelton plots that are ubiquitous in the town that bears their name as well as across the water in Derby.  The central monument is a modified obelisk with funerary urn and laurel wreath, signifying the race well run.  Below the laurel wreath is the Masonic compass and square indicating that Lewis Shelton (d. 1875 ae. 79 years) was a member of that society.  He is buried with his wife, Minerva Pierce Shelton, who also lived a full life for the time period (d. 1866 ae. 66 years).  From a distance, this monument exudes quiet, and genteel affluence, position, respect.  Now let us look to the right. This is the grave of Nancy M. Shelton, daughter of Lewis and Minerva.  She died in 1859 at age fifteen.  The lily over her name symbolizes purity.  There is an inscription at the bottom of the stone, but I can't read it or find a transcription in the cemetery database.  How did she die?  During this period, Consumption kille...

While walking through old cemeteries in New England, I can't help but notice that the larger stones often have a flock of little markers nestling in their shadow.  Sometimes, closer inspection reveals these to be old markers that the larger stone has replaced.  Other times, they mark the graves of infants, still clinging shyly to mother's skirt in death. This tiny stone stood by itself at the far end of the cemetery.  If Mother and Father were about, I could not find them.  The care they lavished on "little Artie's grave" tells me that they aren't neglectful.  They'll come by and by. Arthur Peck Somers, died May 13, 1862 aged 2 years 9 months 

 If there is fear in a handful of dust, then there is truth in tombstones.  Dust and tombstones are both considered unsightly in modern America.  In California, that most cosmetic state, the Lawn Cemetery is king, with its rows of unobtrusive, ground level stones hiding the unpleasant reality of Man's mortality from all but the most curious of eyes.  But the stones are still there, and with them the truth that they tell. When I was a child, adults always spoke to me as if certain things were my right by simple virtue of being human.  They didn't say "if you get married," they said "when."  They didn't say "if you have children," they said "when."  We were to "live our dreams" and remember that  we could "do anything we wanted" because we were "special."  To cap it all off, it was an unquestioned assumption that we'd have some seventy to eighty years to do it all in.  Tombstones tell a different st...

George MacDonald begins his enigmatic Science Fiction novel, Lilith , with a quote from Henry David Thoreau's essay Walking .  Thoreau's haunting, yet ultimately satirical and political description of a trip down an abandoned wagon road in rural Massachusetts is transformed by MacDonald's imagination into a statement on how thin the barrier is that separates our world from other realms. The text below gives the quote from Thoreau as it appears in Lilith , which can be found in it entirety for free here . I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the setting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall. I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, unknown to me,—to whom the sun was servant,— who had not gone into society in the village,—who had not been called on. I...

Our travels this summer took us all over Connecticut and Massachusetts on the trail of historic locations and famous figures.  One place we were particularly delighted to see was Walden Pond, the site a which Henry David Thoreau conducted his famous experiment.  Both my wife and I have taught a selection of Thoreau's works and it was a treat to see Walden complete with a replica of Thoreau's cabin (the original was sold for scrap shortly after he vacated it). I don't know what I think of Thoreau's thought.  On the whole, he seems more useful as a critic than as any positive role model.  On the other hand, we had a nice long chat with a wonderful park ranger at Walden who had been inspired in her job by Thoreau's love of nature.  If Dana Gioia can co-opt lapsed Catholics as part of a larger Catholic literary culture, maybe Thoreau can be treated as a lapsed Puritan.  His thought, iconoclastic, numinous, visionary, and full of a wonder and love for creati...

 The Wooster monument at Oak Cliff Cemetery Derby, Connecticut.  Many of the graves in this cemetery are arranged in family plots with a central monument that lists the names and dates of those buried there.  Small stones with initials mark the actual burial site of individual family members.  I have written about another family plot in this cemetery here . Buried along with the Woosters in a place of honor is Harry N. Thomas, their African-American servant.  I'm in the middle of teaching The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass  and Up From Slavery  to my seniors.  We've had some hard conversations and will be having a few more.  One goal of those conversations is to help them see that slavery may have ended in 1865, but the effects of slavery continue on in all manner of forms down to the present day. W.E.B. Du Bois begins his magnum opus The Souls of Black Folk  by saying that there is one question he continual...

The Church on the Green There are two churches on Huntington Green.  I passed them nearly every day.  Neither of them are particularly grand -at least not by the standards of other churches on other greens.  I never attended either of them, but I love them each in their own special way.  I've already shown you two gems from the Episcopal church pictured above.  Let me show you the rest.  The sky blue vault represents heaven.  The lamps you see would originally have burned whale oil but have been converted for electricity.  All these pictures were taken in natural light at about 10:30 in the morning.  The church is not laid out in a cruciform pattern, but follows the simple "salt box" colonial architecture.  In this, as in its general austerity, Congregationalist influence is evident.  To add a little Episcopal twist, the rectangular sanctuary has been divided (by the columns that support the balcony) into three pa...

...and cold hic jacets of the dead... I have loved and feared cemeteries for as long as I can remember.  I grew up surrounded by them and so some sort of reaction to their ubiquitous presence was inevitable.  While the fear has lessened to the point of being negligible, the love has grown to make them one of my favorite places.  Fortunately, my wife shares this attraction so that our summers in New England have involved numerous trips to grave yards.  Featured here is a gem I found while looking for the graves of several Sheltons in Derby .  It's a family plot, but contains only three burials that I could identify.  This is common in 19th century cemeteries: acquiring wealth gave one generation a desire for permanence but keeping wealth required the next generation to embrace mobility.  The oak sighs in Mamre, but there is no one left to bear a coffin up from Egypt. The funerary arch at the rear of the mortuary garden gives the name of the F...