Aunt Magna, Uncle Harry, Uncle Howard, and Jean are all here.
This graveyard is also called the North Road-Methodist Cemetery, and it appears – according to Google, which has been known to be wrong from time to time (cough) – to be in Bethel, the next town to the north. Note though, that all the other references describe it as in Barnard.
Either way, it is located at the intersection of North Road and Town Highway 13.
No phone, and definitely no website or Facebook page.
.
In an earlier post, we glimpsed the life of a boy, Rodgers Burgin, growing up in Quincy at the very start of the 20th century.
This is the life his future wife, Helen Swain, and her siblings were leading, more or less contemporaneously, in town at 226 Commonwealth Ave., at their grandfather’s house in Exeter, and on the beach in Cohasset.
In no particular order. Memory, I find, skips back and forth anyway…
Boopie and Gagie are here.
Dr Howard Townsend Swain, Sr
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=145938412
Birth: May 16, 1868 Bath, Steuben County, New York
Death: Dec. 6, 1936 Boston, Massachusetts
Plot: Lot 224 B
Find A Grave Memorial# 145938412
Harriet French Swain
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=145938467
Birth: May 28, 1868 Exeter, New Hampshire
Death: Jul. 16, 1958 Milton, Massachusetts
Plot: Lot 224 B
Find A Grave Memorial# 145938467
Map of Exeter Cemetery
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When my grandmother was about four, the Boston artist, Marie Danforth Page painted her.
Here is the resulting portrait. I’m sorry it’s a low res reproduction. (Bad light and an early digital camera.) I’ll try to get a better one soon. In the meantime…
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Ebenezer Sperry French, father of Harriet French, was the principal of the grammar school in Exeter, NH for fifty years. Elisha Lee has it on good authority that he was the basis for the character of “Old Francis” in Henry A. Shute’s The Real Diary of a Real Boy. (Free text available online here; a PDF of an original edition is available here; a copy can be purchased here).
Named after his father’s sister’s husband, Rev. Ebenezer Peck Sperry, he was called “Sperry” by family. (In midlife, he went to the effort of actually dropping “Ebenezer” from his name– legally. There is a listing in the Laws of the State of NH announcing that “Ebenezer Sperry French may take the name of Sperry French.”)
It’s amazing to see him in photos with Nana (Helen Swain Burgin) and Aunt Magna (Margaret Swain Beecher), and think that his father was born during the American Revolution.
Time.
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Left to right: Helen Swain, Margaret Swain, and Sperry French
Harriet Newell Robinson French (1828-1907) had a daughter, Harriet French Swain (1868-1958), who in turn had a granddaughter, Harriet Swain Burgin Lee (1934-).
This name – Harriet – clearly has some history attached to it, but where did that history begin? How far back does it go?
The answer is that it all began with one Harriet Atwood Newell (1793-1812), no relation whatsoever, whose much admired life runs as follows…
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from Wikipedia:
Harriet Newell was born Harriet Atwood at Haverhill, Massachusetts on October 10, 1793.[1] She was part of the first wave of Christian missionaries to go overseas from the United States. She died less than a year into her journey. Following publication of her memoirs, she became a hero and role model for Christians during the nineteenth century. Many children were named for her over the following decades [emaphasis mine–LSL] including Harriet Newell Noyes who also went on to be a missionary.[2]
She married Rev. Samuel Newell in February 1812. Along with Adoniram Judson and Ann Judson [3] they went off to preach in India and Burma. They were expelled by the East India Company and sailed to Mauritius, where she died November 30, 1812. At sea she had given birth to a child who died after five days. Her memoirs were published posthumously,[4] going into a number of editions.
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Harriet Atwood Newell (1793-1812)
Consider this post a placeholder – for myself, or some future researcher – but there is a wealth of primary material relating to the Farrar family of Lincoln/ Concord, currently housed in the Lincoln Public library. And it’s waiting to be gone through and read.
On the genealogical bucket list, this is definitely towards the top (but behind photographing Jonathan French’s journal from the French and Indian War).
LINCOLN PUBLIC LIBRARY
Bedford Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts
ARCHIVES/ SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Farrar Family Collection
2003.009
[The list of documents below is merely a sample.–LSL]
Series 2, Correspondence
Box # Folder # Identification # Description
Series 4, Farrar Family Members
Box # Folder # Identification # Description
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Rebecca French (1785-1869) was the wife of the Reverend Jonathan French, Jr. This is the sermon preached at her funeral.
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Funeral sermon of Mrs. Rebecca French, widow of Rev. Jonathan French, D.D., delivered at the Congregational Church, North Hampton, N.H., February 6th, 1869
Original available here.
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THE PUBLISHED WORKS OF JONATHAN FRENCH, JR. (1778-1856, Son)
Jonathan French, the Revolutionary war surgeon and pastor, had a son of the same name. He spent his professional life as the minister to the congregation in North Hampton/ Northampton.
Here, in succession, are two period accounts of his life.
There is a third– It can be found in a modern book titled, The Way It Was in North Hampton: Some History, Sketches, and Reminiscences That Illuminate the Times of a New Hampshire Seacoast Town, by
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History of Rockingham and Strafford counties, New Hampshire : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men
by Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), publ. 1882
https://archive.org/details/historyofrocking00hurd
pp. 415-417
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
REV. JONATHAN FRENCH, D.D. (b.1778)
Kinsmen and Kinswomen 