Monday, August 16, 2010

Gravestone Identification Challenge


Here's a little challenge from reader RJO:
The gravestone fragment shown here was recently found in the South Street Cemetery in Fitchburg, MA. South Street is Fitchburg's first cemetery, and the earliest stone dates to 1766. This fragment may have been buried under the leaves somewhere, or been tossed over the fence and returned by a neighbor who came across it. In any event, it has not
been recorded before.

Whose stone is it?

I can tell you this fragment is 72 cm tall and the family name is Thurlo, and what's left of the stone reads:

]d the
T]hurlo,

]arah
]ed
]. Age
]ths


]in
]tchburg.

First of all, what can you deduce just from this fragment alone?

Going further, using only Google and the information above, I think I've figured out who the stone belonged to, or at least have narrowed it to two possibilities, but I could be wrong. See if you can track it down yourself. (If you're like me, the first track you take will be a side track, rather than the main route.)
Anyone up for the challenge? I've done a little poking and have some leads, but am not as confident as RJO! Leave thoughts in the comments.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

My best guess:

It's a 4-year-old boy named Moses Thurlo(w), son of Moses and Sarah (Jewett) Thurlo(w).

Born Oct. 1, 1763. Died April 17, 1768.

-Peter Fisk

Anonymous said...

This was my thought process:

"-hurlo" = Thurlo, which is often spelled Thurlow

"-arah" = Sarah

So I looked for a man named Thurlo or Thurlow who had a wife named Sarah and lived in Fitchburg at a time consistent with the style of stone and dates that the cemetery was used.

The only name I found that fit those parameters was Moses Thurlow, who married Sarah Jewett:

http://books.google.com/books?id=KTETAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA5-PA679&lpg=RA5-PA679&dq=moses+thurlow+fitchburg&source=bl&ots=1xarcvdxuZ&sig=2lxqLNBk3E71nvlHvXpbjFIjDtI&hl=en&ei=gZlpTLfmJoT2swOB_634Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=moses%20thurlow%20fitchburg&f=false

Moses and Sarah did not live in Fitchburg long. They had come from Rowley and moved on to New Hampshire within a few years. So it's unlikely this is a grave of either of them.

Also, the fact that Sarah's name is on the stone makes it unlikely this is the grave of Moses Sr. -- stones would often ID a woman as "wife/relict of John Doe," but a man would not be ID'd as "husband of Jane Doe."

So, this could possibly be Sarah's stone, or a SHARED stone of Moses Sr. and Sarah.

However, the scant records of this family strongly suggest that neither parent would have been buried in Fitchburg, so that suggests that it is the grave of a child.

Next clue: "-ths" ends the line after the line that ends in "age." I take this almost certainly to be the end of the word "months." Only a young child would be identified as being aged "X months" or "X years and Y months."

Since Moses Jr. is the sole child of this family I could find on record as having died in Fitchburg, and everything else seems to fit, I concluded it was probably Moses Jr.

Also, the fact that Moses Jr.'s family moved away and he was the apparently only family member buried at that cemetery is consistent with a stone that was neglected, as there would have been fewer visits to the grave over the years than if he had been from a family that continued to live in Fitchburg.

Not definitive of course, but the evidence seems reasonably compelling.

My tentative guess at a reconstruction of the wording would be some variation on:

Here lies buried the
body of Moses Thurlo,
Child of
Moses and Sarah
Thurlo, who departed
this life at the age
of 4 years and 6 months

I'll leave the carver guess to others.

-Peter Fisk

Anonymous said...

... Moses Sr.'s brother William Thurlo(w) also removed to Fitchburg, and he actually died there, and he had a daughter named Sarah, but I can't come up with a scenario that connects him or anyone in his immediate family to the fragments of wording on the broken stone.

Peter Fisk

Anonymous said...

Excellent, Bob. Thanks for that lesson on carver identification.

That Hannah Wright stone also seems to give a better idea of what the missing text on our Thurlo stone originally said. (I forgot to include the death date in my text guess, of course.)

-Peter Fisk
(who really should set up a real Google account)

Unknown said...

Bob,

Are you by any chance the same RJO who keeps this genealogy site? If so, I owe you thanks for that as well, as I have relied on that site in the past in researching my own genealogy.