Tombstone Tuesday - Cemetery in Your Basement

Anybody else remember the Dead Milkman and their song "Big Lizard in Your Backyard"? My title kind of reminds me of it. But enough of my wasted youth...

So yeah, there are lots of places that have crypts or tombs in the basement, but how many have the actual cemetery down there? As in, the ground, and gravestones sticking up out of it?

Take a trip to New Haven, Connecticut and you can see for yourself. In the green that still exists in the center of the city there are now 3 churches (it's a long story). Back in the early days of the city in the 1600s the cemetery was there as well, and was there for many many decades.

Eventually, they built other churches on the grounds of the town green, and my focus is on the center church. The picture below, which I got from the church's website: http://www.newhavencenterchurch.org/ shows what it looks like. It's the center church. By the way, that's Yale University in the background there (gorgeous as well).


The church was first built in 1813, right on top of part of the cemetery. Instead of taking the stones away, they just built right on top of them.

Now I know what you're thinking: But what about the rest of the cemetery Leah, that picture doesn't show any headstones.

That's right! They just picked up all the headstones and moved them to another cemetery nearby. There they propped them up against the cemetery wall.

But, you say, what about the bodies???? Didn't they move the remains as well?

NO! :-) They moved the cemetery but they left the bodies!!! They left the bodies and only moved the headstones! They're all still under there as you walk around this gorgeous park-like green. About 5000 people they say! Slightly creepy on that gorgeous day on the green? Yes. Yes it was.

Anyway, the church allows you to tour the Crypt as they call it and it's really wonderful. There were a bunch of the Trowbridge family down there, which is one of my really far back direct ancestors. I learned by the nice guide lady that it's pronounced Tro-bridge, rhymes with "sew" and not Trow-bridge, rhymes with "how". What can I say, at least she didn't laugh outright at me like the nice scottish man who corrected my pronunciation of "Arbuthnott". :-D Yeah, laugh away, dear reader, let's hear how you'd pronounce it!!!

To the right here is the actual Scotsman that laughed at me. Just to be clear, he's the one on the right in the picture. If only he'd been on a horse, I might have taken it better. :-D

The oldest stone in the underground graveyard is for Sarah (Rutherford) Trowbridge. She passed away in 1687. She's my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. How cool is that???

So here are some pictures, but really, you ought to see it for yourself, so if you are ever in New Haven, check it out!

Center Street Cemetery, Wallingford, CT

Last August I was fortunate enough to have a chance to visit Wallingford Connecticut. It's a small town not far outside of New Haven Connecticut. Ancestors of mine (plus others) that lived in New Haven ventured out a little North-ish and founded Wallingford near the Qunnipiac River. The name Wallingford came from a town of the same name in England. The town was incorporated in 1670 and the Center Street Cemetery was established in 1683.


I read some newspaper articles just now (first one, second one) that later in the same month that I was there some vandals toppled and broke some stones as old as 200 years old. The town believes they have successfully repaired them though, and celebrated the 325 year-annivesary of the cemetery by dressing up as famous people who are interred there. I wish I could have seen that!

My direct ancestors who were part of the founding of Wallingford were Daniel and Ruth (Rockwell) Mix. Unfortunately I couldn't locate their headstones in the cemetery - some of the really old one's are long gone or completely illegible. I was also shaking my fist at the beautiful blue sky and sun we had that day because it was in the exact wrong place for my photos of gravestones to show up nicely. Oh well!!! Such is life.

There was a handy-dandy listing of the oldest or most famous people who were buried there:



I kind of like the style of the older grave markers you see. You'd see hearts and skulls and winged moons(?) suns(?) and sometimes foreboding quotes at the bottom like: "Prepare for Death & Follow Me".

gosh.

Here's a couple pics to give you the flavor:

New Haven Connecticut and Thomas Mix

Back in August of this year, I took a trip up to Connecticut and visited New Haven for the first time. To me, this was quite significant because when I first started doing genealogy about 287 years ago (or at least it feels like that), the first cool thing I found was about New Haven.

It turns out that (on my Mom's side) there is this family called MIX. I'm not yelling at you, it's just that when we genealogists type out a surname we're supposed to make it all capitals. I don't know why, but pick up any family history or genealogy book and you'll see it like that. I guess it's to get your attention. Not that I'm some sort of official genealogist, I don't belong to any groups or associations or anything, but hey, I've been doing for over a decade. Actually I don't think I'll do the all caps thing anymore because I do feel like I'm yelling, and this isn't a book.

So anyway, my grandmother's maiden name was Mix. And I managed to trace it all the way back to a Thomas Mix, who was one of the founders of New Haven, Connecticut in 1637.

I thought that was pretty cool. We're not really a family (on my mom's or my dad's side) that has had possessions to pass down. I guess we were all part gypsy, which does explain why I like to move so much. I see these annoying people on those antique roadshow things, all like, hey, my great-aunt left me this ugly costume bracelet and it turns out to be diamonds and platinum. Or some broken down hall table turns out to be a chippendale. Who are these people? How do they hold on to this stuff? They must not have people like my mother in their families because if it isn't nailed down, it's in the trash. And this includes slow-moving family members.

So when I found out I "owned" New Haven, I felt pretty cool about it! Hey, that's my town! My relative helped set it up!

We even found where we believe the old homestead was. Not Thomas Mix's, he wasn't listed on the map, so we think he and his wife were living with his father-in-law, Nathanial Turner. Actually, it was Captain Nathanial Turner. Even though they were all puritans, they liked their titles. Captain Turner's homestead is probably under the building in the center of this picture:



I got the info from a book, it said "Nathanael Turner, whose home-lot was on Church Street, next south of Mr. Cheever's", and an old map of the original new haven colony that showed people's homesteads.

Could you imagine founding a city? I can't imagine. Just sitting around the fire and saying, hey, let's put a street over there, and an intersection down there. Oh, and let's fill in that swamp. ???? And then argue over who has the best land for their garden? Yikes! They had guts if nothing else.