Tuesday, February 26, 2013

17: The Baker Children

Grave of Susan M. Baker (source)
Susan M. Baker, whose grave is pictured here, was the last and oldest of four children that Daniel and Rosanna Baker buried in the cemetery. The others were Emeline Baker (1860-1869), William Baker (1864-1869), and Salena A. Baker (1865-1868). Yet Daniel and Rosanna aren't buried in the cemetery.

Daniel was the son of William, a farmer, and Esther Baker, and his siblings included Catherine, Amy, and Sylvester.

1850 US Federal Census
When first looking at the 1870 census, I was confused by the fact that Emeline Baker, whose death date is given as January 29, 1869, is still alive. Then I looked at it again. This Emeline Baker was three months old in 1870; the Emeline Baker who died in 1869 was nine years old. It seems that the Bakers had named their infant daughter after their daughter who had just died. 

1870 US Federal Census
At this point the Bakers had already seen three children into the grave, and Susan would die within a year. At the same time, Rosanna had just recently given birth to Emeline, and Sylvester the year before.

Rosanna, who was born in Ireland, would face one more tragedy in the next decade - the death of her husband. In 1880, she lived with her two surviving children, Sylvester and Emeline. At the age of 12, Sylvester worked in a drug store and attended school.

1880 US Federal Census
By 1900, Rosanna lived with her one surviving child, Emma (Emeline) Baker Bedient, Emma's husband George, and their son George Jr. in Danbury, CT. Sylvester Baker's death is confirmed by the number of his mother's children: six, of whom one was living.

1900 US Federal Census
Rosanna seems to have died by 1910, when her daughter and her family were renting an apartment at 441 Main Street in Danbury. George's mother Jennie was now living with them. George worked as a salesman of silver plates. This census reveals that the Bedients had lost one child.

1910 US Federal Census
George, Emma, and Jennie were still living together in Danbury in 1920. By 1930, both George and Jennie had died, and Emma was living on her own. She seems to have died before 1940.

What about George Bediant, the couple's only surviving child? Here he is documented in the Connecticut Military Census of 1917:

Connecticut Military Census 1917
At age 26, he could ride a horse but not drive a car. According to his World War I Draft Registration Card, he had blue eyes and brown hair.

In 1920, George was living in Bridgeport, CT, with his wife Louise and their two small children, Viola and Louis. Louise was French and had come to the United States in 1906; she was now a naturalized citizen. George worked as a machine operator in a cartridge shop.

1920 US Federal Census
In 1930, the family had moved to Beacon Falls, where both husband and wife worked in a rubber factory. Ten years later, George still lived in Beacon Falls, but Louise wasn't with him. He still worked as a machine operator.

Louis Bedient enlisted in World War II in December 1941. At that point he was single and 64 inches tall. He later married Anne Marcy, had two children, and worked as a machinist. He died in 1988 in Danbury, CT; Anne died in 2003.
  1.  William Baker (1793-) m. Esther (1809-)
    1. Catherine O. Baker (1831-)
    2. Amy Ann Baker (1832-)
    3. Daniel P. Baker (1837-before 1880) m. Rosanna (1838-before 1910)
      1. Susan M. Baker (1858-1871)
      2. Emeline Baker (1860-1869)
      3. William Baker (1864-1869)
      4. Salena A. Baker (1865-1868)
      5. Sylvester Baker (1868-before 1900)
      6. Emeline Baker (1870-before 1940) m. George S. Bedient (1869-before 1930)
        1. George Harrison Bedient (1890-after 1940) m. Louise (1891-before 1940)
          1. Viola Bedient (1916-)
          2. Louis G. Bedient (1918-1988) m. Anne Marcy (1915-2003)
            1. Two children (living)
        2. Unnamed child (d. young)
    4.  Sylvester H. Baker (1839-)

16: The Babcocks

Graves of Sarah, Charles, and William Babcock (source)
Three of the four Babcocks in the cemetery died within five months of each other. Twenty-four-year-old William Babcock died on August 9, 1861. His mother Sarah died on November 1. Then, on February 20, 1862, William's 23-year-old brother Charles died. Amos Babcock, bereft of his wife and two sons, lived for another ten years, dying in 1872 at the age of 63.

Amos was born in Massachusetts around 1809. In 1850, he and his family lived in Ossining, New York, where Amos worked as a "keeper in prison." This has to be Sing Sing Prison, built in 1826. It couldn't have been an easy job.

1850 US Federal Census
Of course, it was easier to be a "keeper" than an inmate. In this article, Mark Gado describes some of the ordeals suffered by the 19th-century prisoners at Sing Sing. Here's an excerpt:
Prisoners were not allowed to talk or communicate with each other in any way whatsoever. The prisoners ate in silence, worked in silence and existed in a quiet world where penitence was the goal. They walked together in lock step, in their striped prison uniforms, like robots, one behind another. One 19th century visitor wrote, "There was something extremely imposing in the profound silence with which every part of the work of these were performed" (Christianson). Inmates were given a Bible to read and were allowed no visitors from the outside world. Meditation was encouraged. Some prisoners were able to memorize huge portions of the Bible. One inmate committed to memory 1,296 verses, another 1,605 (Christianson). Any violation of the silent system was treated with harsh and immediate punishment. Most wardens believed that to ignore any infraction committed by an inmate was to encourage rebellion. Prisons became autonomous entities, impervious to the outside world.
Here's an engraving of Sing Sing Prison in 1855. I wonder what the position of "keeper" entailed. Was it like a warden or more like a security guard?

State Prison at Sing Sing, 1855 (source)
In any case it was a steady job, if we can judge by the fact that Amos was still working there ten years later, one year before the calamity that befell his family.

1860 US Federal Census
By 1870, Amos had remarried to a woman named Alice, and no longer worked at the prison. Strangely enough, his occupation is listed as "(retired) grocery." Had Amos also worked as a grocer, or did he keep his former occupation as a prison keeper a secret from the census taker? The other man in the household, 55-year-old Ebenezer Wheeler, is also listed as a retired grocer.

1870 US Federal Census
Alice was still alive in the next census, which is the first to illuminate the relationships between her and the two people living with her - Ebenezer Wheeler and Frances Westervelt. Ebenezer is her brother, meaning that Alice's maiden namew as likely Wheeler. Frances is her daughter, who is designated by the census as "idiotic." The 1880 census had five categories for those considered disabled: "blind," "deaf and dumb," "idiotic," "insane," and "maimed, crippled, bedridden, or otherwise disabled."

1880 US Federal Census
Since Frances's surname is Westervelt, I'm assuming that was the name of Alice's first husband.

I can't find Alice in the 1900 census, but by 1910 she was a boarder in the house of Morris B. and Mabel Oliver. This census reveals that Frances Westervelt, along with a second child of Alice's, was now dead. Alice was 93 years old.

1910 US Federal Census

This is very likely the last census in which Alice appears. But now let's travel back in time to when she was a Westervelt. In 1850, she lived with her husband, a carpenter named Jacob Westervelt, and their two children.

1850 US Federal Census
Although labeled "idiotic" in 1880, in 1850 thirteen-year-old Frances was attending school.

By 1860, Jacob Westervelt had died. This census suggests how she might have met her second husband. At the time she was living with her two children, her brother Ebenezer Wheeler, and three boarders who included a man who was also a keeper at the prison. Did he introduce Alice to Amos?

1860 US Federal Census
Despite marrying twice, it seems that Alice spent most of her adult life on her own. It couldn't have been easy to be a single mother of two children in 1860, nor the single mother to a disabled adult child in 1880. There couldn't have been much help and understanding for a person labeled "idiotic" in the late nineteenth century, when most people with mental disabilities ended up in institutions or died from lack of medical care or from neglect.

There are still lingering questions about this family, including: What happened to Mary J. Babcock? Presumably she married, but since I don't know to whom I can't trace her. And when did George Westervelt die? Did he marry and have children? These are some of the questions I may be able to answer in my next round, when I start visiting physical repositories.

  1. Amos Babcock (1809-1872) m. (1) Sarah (1811-1861); (2) Alice J. Wheeler Westervelt (1817-after 1910)
    1. William G. Babcock (1837-1861)
    2. Charles S. Babcock (1838-1862)
    3. Mary J. Babcock (1843-)
  1. Alice J. Wheeler (1817-after 1910) m. (1) Jacob Westervelt (1812-before 1860); (2) Amos Babcock (1809-1872)
    1. Frances E. Westervelt (1837-before 1910)
    2. George E. Westervelt (1845-before 1910)

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

14: Debra Ann and Caroline Sarles Dean

Graves of Debra Ann Dean and Caroline Sarles Dean
There are three Deans buried in the cemetery. The graves of Debra Ann Dean (1799-1854) and Caroline Sarles Dean (1826-1906) are next to each other and look a bit incongruous. The former is slim, pale, and modestly detailed, and the latter large, modern, and blocky. Then there is the grave of Marcus Dean, which was badly damaged at some point after 1914; the part that remained was replaced on its base.

How were these people related? Were they related? Debra's grave states that she was the wife of Silas W. Dean, but he isn't buried in the cemetery.

One of Silas Dean's descendants, a man by the name of Henry Cornell Woolley Black, was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, and it is from his application that I know that Silas himself was a descendant of Elijah Dean, a Revolutionary War soldier. Here is the genealogy that Henry Black wrote:

Sons of the American Revolution Application of Henry C. W. Black, 1932
I figured that Elijah Dean's descendants had probably also joined the DAR, so I searched in their genealogical database. Sure enough, four people have joined the DAR as descendants of Elijah Dean through his son David and his wife Deborah Holmes - including a granddaughter of Henry Black.

But let's return to Debra Ann Greene Dean, who is the only member of this line buried in the cemetery. In 1850, which is the first year that women and children ever existed as far as the census is concerned, she was living in New York City with her husband and their flock of children. Silas was a hatter.

1850 US Federal Census
Here we find a Caroline Dean whose age matches up with the Caroline Sarles Dean buried in the cemetery. I had assumed that she was born Caroline Sarles and married a Dean, but it's also possible that she never married, and that her name was Caroline Sarles Dean from birth.

For the answer, we need to travel 50 years later to 1900, when the 74-year-old Caroline Dean was living with her sister Mary's son Henry - the one who would apply for the Sons of the American Revolution in 1932 - in Pequannoc, New Jersey. Henry lived with his Irish-born wife, Ella (Elinor), their daughter (Caroline) Elizabeth, and three "boarders" who were in fact relatives. Caroline and Selso Dean were Henry's aunt and uncle. Poor Henry and Elinor had had four children in their seven years of marriage, but only one was living.

1900 US Federal Census
Henry was a farmer. Elinor, whose maiden name was Casey, had come to the United States 18 years earlier.

The strangely named Selso Dean, who like his sister never married, was a soldier in the Civil War. I can't find him in any other censuses beside the 1850 and the 1900. He's buried in Arlington Memorial Park Cemetery in New Jersey.

Caroline Dean died on her 80th birthday in 1906 and was buried beside her mother. Four years after her death, her nephew and niece were living with their daughter in Babylon, Long Island. Henry now worked as a bill clerk in an express office - quite different from his former occupation as a farmer. Strangely, they are now listed as the parents of one child, with one living. Was the number given in the 1900 census a mistake, or did the Blacks neglect to mention their three deceased children in order to avoid dredging up bad memories? Perhaps the question was qualified in a different way in the 1910 census, e.g. not counting stillbirths. In any case, it's interesting to note that the 1900 census only counted a mother's children, while the 1910 census enumerates the children of both parents.

1910 US Federal Census
Five years later, the Blacks were still in Babylon, living with Elinor's sister Bessie and 19-year-old Blossom. Who is Blossom? She's listed as Henry and Elinor's daughter, and given her age, I'm inclined to say it's Elizabeth. Why she went by Blossom is a mystery. Her full name, given by her descendants to the DAR, was Caroline Elizabeth Ann Black.

1915 New York State Census
According to the DAR record, Caroline/Elizabeth/Blossom married George Joseph Brooks and died in 1918, leaving a daughter, Mildred Elinor. The date of her death suggests that she could have died in or after childbirth, or possibly in the flu pandemic of that year. As revealed by the 1920 census, Henry and Elinor assumed responsibility their granddaughter's care.

1920 US Federal Census
Elinor Casey Black died in 1925. Henry and Mildred moved in with his sister, Mary Woll (probably Woolley; I suspect the Henry Woolley listed living with Henry was her father-in-law), who seems to have been quite well off. Her house, which she owned, was worth $45,000. For comparison, my great-grandparents bought their five bedroom house in Westchester in the 1920s for about $3,000. The address was 64 West 69th Street - less than a block away from Central Park.

1930 US Federal Census
According to StreetEasy, the building at that address has four stories with ten units and was built in 1910. I believe that this is it, identified on Google Street View (the number 64 can be seen on the door in the lower center):
64 West 69th Street, NY, NY
By 1940, Mary Woolley had died, leaving the house to her brother Henry. He was 70, living with his 21-year-old granddaughter Mildred, 22-year-old lodger Phyllis Kaler, his chauffeur Norman Harris, and his cook (and Norman's wife) Catherine Harris. Both Mildred and Phyllis had been to college, perhaps the same one. Henry worked as a textile salesman.

1940 US Federal Census
Mildred married James Louis Pettit in 1942, and had five children. He was a captain in World War II. Mildred died in 1992 and James in 2008. You can read his obituary here.

  1. Elijah Dean (1701-1760) m. (2) Sophia Leonard (1717-1762) in 1742
    1. Elijah Dean (1747-1792) m. Susanna Bass (1749-1829) in 1768
      1. David Dean (1769-1860) m. Deborah Holmes (1769-1827) in 1796
        1. Silas Washington Dean (1800-1865) m. Debra Ann Greene (1799-1854) in 1820
          1. Caroline Sarles Dean (1826-1906) 
          2. Elizabeth Dean (1832-)
          3. Agnes Dean (1834-)
          4. William Dean (1835-)
          5. Selso Dean (1840-after 1900)
          6. Mary Dean (1841-1916) m. John Henry Black (1839-1908) in 1861
            1. George H. Black (1864-after 1930) 
            2. Mary Black (1866-1930s) m. Unknown Woolley 
            3. Henry Cornell Woolley Black (1870-after 1930) m. Elinor Casey (1869-1925) in 1892
              1. Caroline Elizabeth Ann Black (1895-1918) m. George Joseph Brooks (1893-)
                1. Mildred Elinor Black (1918-1992) m. James Louis Pettit (1917-2008) in 1942

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

13: Gilbert, Mary, and Oscar Carpenter

Grave of Gilbert, Mary, and Oscar Carpenter
Here is something I haven't seen before in this project: a triple gravestone. That is, there are three people commemorated by this stone: Gilbert Carpenter, his wife Mary A., and their son Oscar. The stone itself is a bit of a mystery. Both Gilbert and Oscar died in 1873, and Mary died in 1898. Surely Gilbert and Oscar were not without a tombstone for 25 years. Did Mary have the tombstone made for all three of them, with her death date added later? Or did this later tombstone replace one or two earlier ones? There's also the strange fact that the stone sits rather crookedly on its base. Is it a replacement for a damaged stone or stones, perhaps created years after Mary's death?

I'll have to return to the cemetery soon to make sure I'm not missing any other tombstones. Sometimes a family in which each member had his or her own stone also had a stone commemorating several of them. Usually, however, these family stones were much larger than a regular stone and had the family's name prominently displayed (such as the Stanton family stone).

Here is Gilbert Carpenter in 1850 as a farmer of 25 living in his parents' house. I'm sorry to say that this is what the census looks like. Fortunately, it's been transcribed, I'm not sure how - perhaps the black stuff is a problem with the copy or it happened after the transcription, I don't know. But in any case it shows Gilbert living with his father, Gilbert Sr., his father's wife Anna, eighteen-year-old Amy Wonder, and eleven-year-old Sylvia Vail.

1850 US Federal Census
Gilbert Sr. was significantly older than Anna (60 to 40). This is why I hesitate to call her Gilbert Jr.'s mother; she would have been 15 when he was born, which is possible, but I think it's more likely that she was his stepmother. The two girls might have been her daughters from a previous marriage or marriages.

Ten years later, Gilbert was married to Mary and they were living with their nine-year-old son Oscar and a nineteen-year-old named Willett H. Carpenter. Gilbert was a farmer.

1860 US Federal Census
In 1863, 37-year-old Gilbert was drafted in the Civil War along with some other local Carpenters, a Cronk, a Cornell, and a Crosby. My favorite, of course, is Purdy Carpenter. I love when the old families of this area use their old family surnames as first names for their sons.

US Civil War Draft Registrations Records June 1863
I can't find any of the Carpenters in the 1870 census, which is unfortunate, since it was the last census that would have listed Gilbert and Oscar. They both died in 1873 - Oscar in February and Gilbert in November.

By 1880 Mary, having lost her husband and son, had become the housekeeper to 85-year-old Thomas Wright. They shared the house with Philander Purdy, a wheelwright.

1880 US Federal Census

I found a legal notice in the Albany Evening Journal from 1854 that named Jesse M. and Caroline Carpenter as plaintiffs against a large group of defendants that included Gilbert and Mary Carpenter. I can barely read it except for this first part:

Westchester County Court
Jesse M. Carpenter and Caroline his wife, against Mary Ann Carpenter, Gilbert Carpenter and Mary Adelia his wife, Philander G. Purdy and Sarah his wife, William J. Underwood and Sarah his wife, Mary Emily Carpenter, Willet H. Carpenter, Hannah Elizabeth Carpenter, George O. Carpenter, and William Carpenter, defendants.

My best guess is that this is some sort of dispute over an inheritance - hence the multiple Carpenters. I have a hunch (but no proof) that Jesse M. Carpenter (born 1819) and Gilbert Carpenter (born 1825) were brothers. If so, then 1854 would be just the right time for their father, who was born in 1790, to die, leaving his heirs to battle it out. Assuming this is true, might Sarah Purdy and Sarah Underwood have been Gilbert Sr.'s daughters or stepdaughters?

So far, I've had trouble finding any evidence at all. It seems that all of Gilbert Sr.'s children except for Gilbert Jr. had moved out of his house by 1850, which is the first census to list all family members' names. Thus determining the relationship of all of these Carpenters is going to require further investigation.

Here is the family tree for now. If Oscar really was Gilbert and Mary's only child, and he was never married, that would explain why someone thought they should all share the same gravestone.
  1.  Gilbert Carpenter (1790-) m. (1) Unknown; (2) Anna (1810-)
    1. Gilbert Carpenter (1825-1873) m. Mary Adelia (1830-1898)
      1. Oscar W. Carpenter (1851-1873)

12: Jesse M. and Caroline Carpenter

Grave of Caroline Carpenter
There are nine Carpenters buried in the cemetery, including Caroline Carpenter and her son, Charles. Strangely enough, Caroline's husband Jesse is not buried there.

Jesse and Caroline first appear together in the 1850 census, along with their one-year-old daughter Sarah and a thirteen-year-old boy named Charles H. Williams. Jesse was a farmer. Strangely, Caroline is listed as only 23 years old, when the dates given on her tombstone (age 70 in 1890) would have made her 30. This is a significant discrepancy. We'll have to see what the other the censuses suggest.

1850 US Federal Census
Here is the 1860 census. Caroline is now 33, which is consistent with her age from the 1850 census. Jesse, on the other hand, has either aged backward by 20 years or has fallen victim to the census taker's bad handwriting and/or hearing. He is certainly not 23 - not with a thirteen-year-old daughter.

1860 US Federal Census
In 1869, Jesse Carpenter held a surprise party for his two daughters, which was described in the Yonkers Statesman: 
Yonkers Statesman February 11, 1869
Of course there were Sarleses present.

It's 1870, and the Carpenters' ages have changed yet again. Now Caroline's age corresponds with the information given on her tombstone.

1870 US Federal Census
I tend toward the theory that Caroline was actually born in 1820 and that her age was incorrectly recorded (for whatever reason) on the census. First of all, ages given on tombstones are typically more accurate than ages given in the census. And secondly, if Caroline were actually 33 in the 1860 census, that would mean that her youngest child was born when she was 25. Even allowing for children's deaths, it seems much more likely that Caroline had her last child at age 32. 

Furthermore, the number of children Caroline had (3) is more in keeping with a woman who began reproducing in her late 20s or early 30s, rather than in her early 20s. If Caroline had actually had her first child at age 22, I would expect to see more Carpenter children - either in the census or in the cemetery, or both. After all, women in this time period typically had a child every two years, a pattern that is reflected in the other families I've researched. And Jesse and Caroline's children do seem to have been two years apart.

 Jesse and Caroline's youngest child and only son Charles died in 1871 at the age of 19.

Grave of Charles Carpenter
In 1880, Jesse and Caroline had only one child under their roof. They also had one laborer, Lewis Reynolds, age 20.

1880 US Federal Census

Caroline Carpenter died on August 16, 1890. This was her obituary in the local paper:

The Recorder August 22, 1890
Jesse M. Carpenter died in 1899. This was his obituary:
Mr. Jesse M. Carpenter, a farmer, living on the South Bedford road, died on Sunday morning, Feb. 5th, 1899, at about 4 o'clock, at the advanced age of 80 years. His age and paralysis were the causes of death.

He is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Sarah Jane Young, of New York City, and Miss Francenia Carpenter, who lived at home with him, and kept his house. He also leaves one sister, Mrs. La Boyteaux, of New York.

  1. Jesse M. Carpenter (1819-1899) m. Caroline (1820-1890)
    1. Sarah J. Carpenter (1849-) m. J. B. Young
    2. Francenia Carpenter (1851-)
    3. Charles Carpenter (1852-1871)

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

11: Stanley W. Sarles

Grave of Stanley W. Sarles
This week I've decided to make an attempt to climb a branch of the very extensive Sarles family tree. This is the grave of Stanley W. Sarles, who died in 1876 at the age of 22. I've already encountered his sister, Eudora Sarles, in my post on the Platts; she married William Platt around 1889, and moved to Aspen, Colorado. While living in Connecticut she was a member of the First Congregational Church of Kent, along with her future sister-in-law, Frances Waldron.
Kent Congregational Church today (source)

Member list of Congregational Church from History of Kent, CT
Eudora and Stanley's parents were Hamilton Sarles and Esther Williams. Hamilton, who died in 1869 at the age of 43, is buried in the cemetery, along with their one-year-old daughter Annette. Esther, who went on to marry Joseph Burroughs and live in Connecticut and then with her daughter in Aspen, CO, is not.

Hamilton's parents, William and Maria, are buried in the cemetery. Maria died in 1842 at the age of 48. Eight years later, her 75-year-old widower was living with their four children: Hamilton, a milkman; Schuyler, a shoemaker; and Elizabeth and Erastus.

1850 US Federal Census
By 1860, Hamilton had married Esther and had two children, Stanley and Catherine.

Meanwhile, Hamilton's brother Schuyler enlisted in the Civil War. His muster roll abstract from 1862 states that he is 5'6", with dark eyes, black hair, and a fair complexion, and that he worked as a shoe cutter.

Their youngest brother, Erastus, was living in a nearby hotel in the 1860 census and was listed as a "gentleman." At least, I assume it was a hotel, since the head of household is a hotel keeper; perhaps it was a boarding house? And what exactly is meant by "gentleman" - "unemployed?" In any case it's nice to see Erastus keeping company with a Kniffin, perhaps related to my great-great-great grandmother Adelia Kniffin, and with two Reynolds, which is a very common name in the cemetery.

1860 US Federal Census
Sadly, all three of the Sarles brothers died young, by our standards. In fact, they all died in the 1860s; Erastus died in 1862 at age 29; Schuyler in 1867 at age 37; and Hamilton in 1869 at age 43. As you will see, this will be a common theme for this family.

Hamilton Sarles seems to be the only brother who had children. In a biography of his son Fred written in 1921, he's named as Alexander Hamilton Sarles. The biography also states that Hamilton was a Republican and a Prebysterian, and that he was a teacher before becoming a successful farmer.

Hamilton's son Stanley, of the featured gravestone, seems to have inherited his father's interest in teaching. He "acquired a liberal education" and had been hired as principal in a large school in New York City when he died.

Two of Stanley's brothers also died young. Joseph Sarles, who owned a meat market in Connecticut, died at age 36, leaving behind a wife, Nellie Clark Sarles, and two children (one named for brother Stanley). William Sarles was also in the meat business and died at age 38. Youngest brother Hamilton Victor Sarles was still living at the time the biography was written. He became a butcher, married Frances Waldron, and lived in Hartford, CT.
Old postcard of Hartford, CT (source)
The census of Joseph Sarles's family in 1900 reveals a surprising pattern. Nellie Clark Sarles was born in Iowa, although her parents were born in Connecticut. Both children were also born in Connecticut. As we'll see, several of the Sarleses have connections out West, including Eudora Sarles Platt, who moved to Aspen, and Fred Sarles, who was all over the place - Colorado, Utah, Montana. Was there a widespread movement of people from Connecticut to the West during this time, or was it just this family?
1900 US Federal Census
Incidentally, the 1910 census lists Stanley's mother's birthplace as Colorado, not Iowa. Stanley married Minerva A. Wainwright and worked as a watchmaker and jeweler in New Haven, CT. They had three girls, the youngest of whom was named for Minerva's mother Medora.

Movements like these aren't really surprising from our 21st-century perspective, but we tend to move around a lot more than our ancestors did. Compared to the other families from the graveyard I've investigated, this is a lot of movement. Some people might have moved to other states in the Northeast. It's certainly new to see multiple members of a family moving all the way to Colorado.

According to the biography, Fred Sarles was raised by his uncle Stanley Williams in Preston, CT, after his father died, and graduated from Upson Seminary for Boys in 1880.

As for Fred's career after that point, well, I'm not going to summarize it - you can read it here.
And this is about Fred's "interesting" children. His two boys were poets.

As noted in the Platt post, Fred Jr. and Eudora were raised by their aunt and uncle after their mother's death. What happened to Beatrice and Henry, the two younger children? According to their father's biography, they seem to have spent some time in Salt Lake City. The 1910 census shows a Henry and "Birdie" Sarles living with grandparents in Salt Lake City. However, the grandparents' surname is Green, not Smith (their mother's maiden name). Is it possible that Sarah Green was formerly Sarah Smith, and that she married twice?

1910 US Federal Census
William Green, a dentist, was born in Illinois and Sarah in Michigan, but their parents were born in New York. Sarah was the mother of two children, one of whom was dead - this would be Eva Smith. In Fred's biography, it notes that his wife was born in Missouri but grew up in New York State, indicating a connection between East and West.
Butte, MT; old postcard from Flickr
What's more, William Green was 49 in 1910 and his wife Sarah was 61. This means that Sarah was old enough to have a child (Eva Smith) born in 1868, but William was not. In fact, 49 seems a little too young to have an 11-year-old grandchild at all, even for a hundred years ago.

Old postcard of Mormon Temple at Salt Lake City from Antique Plum
So, even though I can't confirm it yet, my theory is that Beatrice and Henry went to live with their grandmother, Sarah Smith Green, and her husband in Salt Lake City after their mother died. Henry later moved to Butte, Montana.

Beatrice Sarles Johnson was widowed by 1930, and moved with her daughter Helen into the home of her brother Henry in Oregon. They had moved out by 1940, at which point Henry had married Portia But.

Fred Sarles Jr.'s marriage to Marguerite Morris seems to have ended quickly, presumably with her death; by 1930, he was married to Chloe Mae Bell and living in Cincinnati, Ohio. The couple had an infant daughter, and Fred was working as an insurance agent. In 1940, the family had moved to Greensboro, North Carolina and had a son, Fred. According to his World War I Draft Registration card, he had blue eyes and brown hair.

Henry Upson Sarles seems to have been named for the founder (Reverend Henry Upson) of the seminary his father attended in Connecticut. He fought in World War I and later worked for the Forest Service in Oregon, where he lived for 23 years. According to his Draft Registration card, he was of slim build, medium height, with gray eyes and brown hair. He died at age 49 of cancer.

The overwhelming trend in this family is that of death for men between the ages of 22 and 49. Just to recap:

Hamilton Sarles died age 43
Stanley Sarles died age 22
Joseph Sarles died age 36
William Sarles died age 38/40
Henry Upson Sarles died age 49
Schuyler Sarles died age 36
Erastus Sarles died age 28

All of these men share the same Y chromosome. They're all descendants of William Sarles, who ironically died at the ripe age of 84. My best guess, given that two men in this family (Henry Upson Sarles and Frederick William Sarles - although the latter died at the age of 70) are known to have died of cancer, is that the Sarles men had a genetic predisposition to cancer that killed them before their 50th birthdays. But that's just speculation.

In contrast to the large number of deaths of young adult men, there seem not to have been a large number of child deaths in this family - just Annette (1864-1865) and possibly Catherine Sarles (born 1858). Of course, it's possible that there are infant/child deaths that I haven't come across.

Final multiple name count (first and middle names):
Hamiltons: 3
Stanleys: 3
Eudoras: 2
Fredericks: 3
Williams: 3
Esthers: 2

And here's the completed family tree. Green names are those of people buried in the cemetery.
  1. William Sarles (1774-1858) m. Maria (1794-1842)
    1. Hamilton Sarles (1826-1869) m. Esther M. Williams (1826-1915); she later married Joseph Burroughs (1814-)
      1. Stanley W. Sarles (1854-1876)
      2. Joseph O. Sarles (1856-1892) m. Nellie Clark (1857-)
        1. Stanley W. Sarles (1880-) m. Minerva A. Wainwright (1878-)
          1. Ruth A. Sarles (1909-)
          2. Virginia Sarles (1910-)
          3. Medora C. Sarles (1914-)
        2. Mabel E. Sarles (1881-)
      3. William A. Sarles (1858-1898) m. Laura A. Page (1863-1939)
      4. Frederick Hamilton Sarles (1860-) m. Eva Smith (1868-1905) in 1888
        1. Frederick William Sarles (1895-1965) m. first Marguerite Morris; second Chloe Mae Bell  
          1. Helen Mae Sarles (1929-)
          2. Frederick W. J. Sarles (1932-)
        2. Eudora M. Sarles (1897-) m. Paul R. Caley
        3. Beatrice Esther Sarles (1898-) m. James C. Johnson (died before 1930)
          1. Helen Johnson (1921-)
        4. Henry Upson Sarles (1900-1949) m. Portia But (1910-1980)
      5. Catherine Sarles (1858-)
      6. Eudora M. Sarles (1862-) m. William Platt (1855-)
      7. Annette Sarles (1864-1865) 
      8. Hamilton Victor Sarles (1866-) m. Frances Waldron (1865-) in 1898
    2. Elizabeth Sarles (1829-)
    3. Schuyler Sarles (1831-1867)
    4. Erastus Sarles (1834-1862)