The Graveyard in 2014

Today I decided to walk over to the graveyard to see how my old friends were doing in the New Year. This March, it will be 241 years since Isaac Lounsbury, owner of the oldest inscribed gravestone in the cemetery, was buried. I can't say his stone looks like new, but it certainly looks a million times better than it did before its restoration.

The cemetery itself is wearing its age well, too. The snow is gone (but not for long!) and while there is a lot more to do, the place has definitely benefited from all the work we have put into it over the past year. As you may recall, we had several restoration days over the spring and summer, and Hans has taken on the role of unofficial groundskeeper. The town has also been pretty good about removing the leaves that Hans gathered up throughout the fall.


Hans moved these stones back into alignment after one of them had shifted. I like how the surface of the granite is reflective at certain angles, and how the stones are smooth on top and rough on the sides.

Speaking of Isaac Lounsbury, here's his stone, looking better than ever. Thomas Brown (the carver) would be proud of the work that the Cornells have done. I have to say, though I love the 18th-century death's heads and cherubs, this stone is really beautifully done - it may even be the most beautiful stone in the cemetery (in my opinion, of course!). Its beauty lies in the simplicity of the design and its perfect execution.

Charles Haight is looking pretty good as well. Sadly, this stone will never look quite like it used to, but I think it looks as well as it possibly could given the circumstances. While no gravestone should be allowed to decay the way that Haight's stone did, it was especially unfortunate given the fact that Haight was such a great benefactor of St. George's. It was his land, after all, that the church and its graveyard were built upon.

But perhaps no one gave more for others than the soldiers buried in the southeast corner of the cemetery. Thanks to an incredible spreadsheet created by the White Plains Historical Society, I can tell you which people could be buried beneath this marker, but I can't be more specific than that. Other historical societies have been successful in identifying the soldiers buried in nearby graveyards, and we are hoping that with further research we will be as well.


Many of the stones in the cemetery have lines of verse beneath their biographical inscriptions. I don't think I've seen any with as short a verse as this one, which I believe says "Jesus my all." A quick Google search revealed that "Jesus, My All" was the name of a hymnal written in the mid-19th century. Perhaps it was a favorite of Sarah Elizabeth Miller, who was born in 1809 and died in 1887.

Near to Sarah Miller's gravestone is this pile of broken sandstone pieces beside their base.


And not far off from that is the dig site itself. Can you spot Feature 1 (marked by stones), Feature 2 (marked by the pillar we removed from the ground), and the rectangular outline of the remaining pillars? I have to say that we left the place pretty neat! You'd hardly know that only a few months ago there were dozens of people with shovels, trowels, and screens all over the place.


On my way out I stopped by the gravestone of Enoch Greene to get a decent photo ...

... and at the gravestone of Susan Thorn to ponder: why does her stone, and that of her infant son Stephen Jr., face a different direction than her husband, Stephen Thorn? Susan, whose maiden name was Susan Weeks, died in 1852, as did her baby. Stephen died in 1891. I have theories about the patterns of stone orientation in the cemetery, but it's still mostly a mystery to me.

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
   

1: Dr. Enoch and Phebe Greene

Grave of Phebe Greene and her children

This is the first post in what I hope will be an extensive project, which I'm calling the Episcopalian Cemetery Project. I'll pick a gravestone (or two) from the cemetery, and see what information I can find out about the people based on some basic genealogical research.

I was drawn to this pair of gravestones first because of their sadness. There are a lot of young children buried in this cemetery, along with young mothers, fathers, sisters, etc., but the story behind these graves is that of the total annihilation of this small family within a few years. Five souls are buried beneath these two stones.

Grave of Enoch Greene, MD

Enoch Greene, M.D., as he is identified on his stone, was born in Weare, New Hampshire, on October 29, 1820, the son of Moses Greene and Betty Johnson. He was presumably named for his grandfather, Betty's father, Enoch Johnson. He attended the Clinton Grove Academy, the Nine Partners' Friends' School in Dutchess County, NY, and the Medical University of New York (now NYU School of Medicine).

In his early career, Enoch worked as a physician at Bellevue Hospital and Blackwell's Island Hospital in New York. In May 1845, he moved to New Castle, in Westchester County, where he began his own private practice, and "very soon gathered a large circle of patients and friends," according to The History of Weare, NH.

On June 25 of that year, he married Phebe Hoag Chase, a Quaker who was born in Weare to John Chase and Betty Dow in March 1810. An antiques dealer in Philadelphia had a sampler (now sold) that was created by Phebe's first cousin, Mary Gove, under Phebe's instruction (Phebe is credited on the sampler itself as "instructress").

Sampler made by Phebe's cousin Mary Gove

In 1848, Enoch became the medical director of Sing Sing Prison, and, shortly after, the superintendant of the hospitals on Ward's Island, where in the course of his duties he was responsible for saving two dozen child patients from a fire. He was also credited for improving the quality of care for patients with "ship's fever" (typhus), so that the death rates greatly dropped, and for designing and overseeing the construction of several new buildings on the island.

Then, in August 1849, Phebe died of cholera following only a few hours' illness. Buried with her in the cemetery are their son Freddy and "two infants." 

Enoch was forced to resign his position at Ward's Island in January 1850 due to illness, but by November was well enough to begin working again, as chief physician at Kings County Hospital. During this time Enoch was living in Manhattan as a boarder in a house with four other people, one of them a medical student, according to the 1850 Census, taken in August.

1850 US Federal Census

On March 13, 1851, Enoch married again, to Susan Brundage, the daughter of Gilbert Brundage and Mary Merritt, who was born October 13, 1822. Then, on April 24, Enoch died of typhus in Flatbush, Brooklyn. This was the announcement of his death in the New-York Daily Tribune on April 26.

NY Daily Tribune April 26, 1851

By the 1900 Census, Susan - now Susan Horton - had been widowed again. The census states she had no children (living or dead). Her widowed "sister" (who was probably misidentified, judging by the fact that she was 37 and Susan was 78) and "niece" (age 14) were living with her. Susan died on August 13, 1906, and is buried in the Episcopalian Cemetery.

1900 US Federal Census

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