Thursday, November 4, 2010

Treasure Chest Thursday - Lucretia (Smith) Seaver's Death Record


It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to share an artifact or a document image from my collection of ancestral stuff.

I scanned the 16 papers in the Civil War Pension File of my great-great-granfather, Isaac Seaver (1823-1901) during Scanfest on 31 October, and one of the documents included in the file was the death record of Isaac's second wife, Lucretia Townsend (Smith) Seaver (1827-1884).  Isaac's third wife, Alvina Matilda (Bradley) (Lewis) Seaver had to prove that she was the only one of Isaac's wives living, so she sent away for, and received, death records for the first two wives.

Here is Lucretia Townsend (Smith) Seaver's death record, obtained by Alvina in 1901 from the Leominster, Massachusetts Town Clerk's office:



The information on this "Transcription from Death Records" includes:

*  Name of Deceased:  Lucretia D. Seaver
*  Residence: Leominster, Mass.
*  Date of Death: March 24, 1884
*  Name of Husband:  [not recorded]
*  Age:  56 years, 6 months, 18 days
*  Place of Death: Leominster, Mass.
*  Sex:  Female
*  Married, Single, or widowed: Married
*  Occupation:  None
*  Birthplace: Medfield
*  Father's Name: Alpheus Smith
*  Mother's Maiden Name: Elizabeth D.
*  Disease, or Cause of Death: Abscess
*  Place of Interment: Leominster
*  Birthplace of Father: [not recorded]
*  Birthplace of Mother: [not recorded]

Charles A. Joslin, Town Clerk of Leominster, attested on the 29th of March 1901 that this was a true copy of the death records, which appeared on the Records of the Town of Leominster, Volume 14, Page 164.  A Justice of the Peace signed the record.

I thought this was interesting to see how the format of a death record provided in 1901 looks significantly different to that which are provided in more recent times.

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