Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Tombstone Tuesday - Elizabeth (Keyes) Hildreth (1759-1793)

Elizabeth Keyes was born 8 April 1759 in Westford MA, and married Zachariah Hildreth (1754-1828) on 1 September 1777 in Westford MA. She bore nine children between 1778 and 1793 before she died on 6 August 1793 in Townsend MA.

Her gravestone stands in the older portion of Townsend Center Cemetery (on the north side of Highland Street to the east of Townsend Center). My notes refer to it as Old Cemetery. I took this photograph in 1991 on a visit to New England:



The inscription reads:

In memory of
Mrs. Elisabeth Hildreth,
the wife of Capt. Zach. Hildreth,
who died Augt 6th 1793
Aged 34 years & 4 months.

"No more my friends don't weep for me,
I'm gone into eternity,
The way to death you all must tread,
And sleep with me among the dead."

Isn't that beautiful? Is it a standard gravestone statement? I Googled the first line and found only one match - in a list of gravestone epitaphs in The New England Magazine here (dated 1801).

Elizabeth (Keyes) Hildreth was one of my 4th-great-grandmothers. My line from her is:

* Zachariah Hildreth (1783-1857), married Hannah Sawtell.
* Edward Hildreth (1831-1899), married Sophia Newton
* Hattie Hildreth (1857-1920), married Frank W. Seaver
* Frederick W. Seaver (1876-1942), married Alma Bessie Richmond
* Frederick W. Seaver (1911-1983), married Betty V. Carringer (1919-2002)
* Randall J. Seaver - moi!

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