The Answer to Yesterday's Mystery

How did Hannah Hayward get two gravestones? One stone had a design similar to the one used on her son's stone in 1740. The other had a design similar to her husband's stone from 1760. It's pretty clear that Hannah's husband Edward erected a stone when she died in 1749 that was similar to her son's. Hannah's second stone was erected by her son Matthew when he put up his father's stone after his death in 1760.

Explaining why the stones were erected is the more difficult question. Son Matthew could have put up a new stone for his mother and simply discarded the old stone nearby. It was the early design that was discovered flat in the grass during a scout project in the 1970s. This becomes more likely when we learn that the cemetery was no longer the center of town life by 1760 since the Congregational church originally built on the site had been abandoned for a new church near where the Civil War memorial is today. Burials continued to be made there for several decades, but the site was no longer visited by the whole town on a twice weekly basis. Still, if Matthew had the horsepower to haul a new stone in, why wouldn't he use the same horses to haul the old stone away?

As mentioned yesterday, Edward Hayward was a controversial figure in the Great Church Controversy that nearly split the town in two over the location of the new meeting house. It's possible that rivals in the controversy overturned Hannah's stone. I think this is unlikely. The old cemetery holds the graves of both sides of the controversy and none seem to have been desecrated. However, records show teenage vandals did strike the cemetery very early in the 19th century prompting some families to disinter their ancestors and move them to the Central Cemetery (opened 1806) on Center Street near the new church. Still, if vandalism had occurred, the question once again is why didn't Matthew remove the old stone when he erected the new one?

Thus, it's possible that Hannah's original gravestone was already lost only eleven years after she was buried.  Vandals aside, the stone could have been badly placed and fallen over in the sandy soil or it could have been knocked over by the sheep early settlers allowed to graze in cemeteries to keep the grass down. Once down dirt and grass would cover it until erosion or frost heaves brought it back to the surface for the boy scout to find two hundred years later. Still, it's hard to believe that a stone could be completely lost from sight in just a decade.  In either event-messy Matthew leaving an old stone behind or less than dutiful Matthew losing a stone in the grass-the mystery of why Hannah has two gravestones will remain.

Tomorrow we'll attempt to answer the question "If the Washington earthquake was a Divine comment on the debt debate, why did God wait until all the politicians were out of town?" Reminds me of the headline a concerned sister, editor of the Randolph High School newspaper, put in the paper when her ne'er-do-well brother barely missed being struck by a giant light that fell from the gym ceiling: "Repent! God won't miss twice."