‘Tales from Pioneers & Soldiers Cemetery’ Archives
“The longer you lived, the longer you were likely to live.”
The slightest and subltest “tilt” of the tombstone after many decades of freeze/thaw cycles is one of the hundreds of such examples of Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery “patina.” Of the ages.Abraham Fletcher died on August 25, 1854 at the age of 87. Margaret, who was born in 1772 died in 1861 at the age of 89 years and five days.Margaret and Abraham Fletcher are buried in a family plot (Lot 9, Block B) with four other family members including their son Asa and his wife Nancy. Nancy died in 1865 at the age of 41, and Asa died in 1889 at the age of 81. By Sue Hunter Weir 100th in a Series Abraham Fletcher, born the longest ago -- 1776. People often ask who is the oldest burial in the cemetery. They don”'t mean whose was the first burial or who lived the longest. What they”'re asking is who was born the longest ago. That honor appears to belong to Abraham Fletcher who was born October 13, 1766, in Mendon, Massachusetts. He and his wife [...]
“Sample” Evidence of Health Naiveté
By Sue Hunter Weir Side by Side Marble Markers They are two of the oldest markers in the cemetery””identical marble markers, side by side, right next to the cemetery”'s only road. They mark the graves of Henry B. Sample and his sister, Lottie Sample. Rev. Robert Sample”'s Lincoln inspired “The Curtained Throne” Homily Their father, Robert F. Sample, was one of the early pastors at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis. Reverend Sample received a call from the Westminster congregation in February 1868. He was already well-known on the East Coast, most notably for a sermon that he gave in Bedford, Pennsylvania on April 23, 1865. The title of the sermon was “The Curtained Throne;” it was so popular that he was asked to repeat it the following Sunday and to give his permission for it to be printed and distributed--the 1860s”' equivalent of “going viral.” The subject of this famous sermon was the [...]
Hannah Burbank Stanchfield Blaisdell: A $65.00 “Touchstone” to The Revolution
Alice Stanchfield Bowman worried about what was going to happen to her mother”'s gravesite and headstone in Layman”'s Cemetery. by Sue Hunter Weir In 1925 Alice Stanchfield Bowman worried about what was going to happen to her mother”'s gravesite and headstone in Layman”'s Cemetery. Alice was 79 years old and almost blind but she could read well enough to follow the newspaper stories about the bodies that were being removed from the cemetery, sometimes at the rate of several hundred a day. She wrote to Marion Satterlee, first president of the Minneapolis Cemetery Protective Association, to let him know that her brother, his wife, and several of their children were buried in the Stanchfield family plot. In addition she had many friends buried there, but it was her mother, Hannah Burbank Stanchfield Blaisdell, that she was most concerned about. Hannah Burbank was born in Maine on March 3, 1806. She married Ezra Stanchfield, [...]
