That’s what my four-year-old said when I told him (somewhat apologetically) where we were going. A chance encounter had led me to discover four new ancestors of my wife, who lie in the small burying ground by the beautiful Bradford Center meeting house in Bradford, New Hampshire, only five miles (by a dirt track through a beaver bog) from our idyllic getaway home in East Washington village. So I took our youngest along for a visit. At four years old, he already has a vast experience of visiting churches, graves, and archives; he is not shy with ancestors:
Jonathan Knight was, as his stone states, a Revolutionary soldier. The raking light on the unusual sandstone, long broken but strongly repaired with iron, makes a dramatic sight.
This graveyard is lovingly tended, and all the old Revolutionary soldiers in it are carefully marked with flags. Nearby lie my son’s other ancestors, Josiah and Mary (French) Rowe:
In this part of the New Hampshire hill country, the once-bustling farms have almost all grown up into quiet woods, so sometimes it is easy to forget how thickly our ancestors lie all around us.
One Comment
Interesting! Coincidentally I was in Bradford just two weeks after you made this post. The current resident of my g-g-g-grandfather’s home surprised me by being outside and inviting me to take a tour of the old house.
Post a Comment