Tombstone Tuesday- Greenlawn Cemetery, Nahant, Massachusetts

Ellingwood Chapel
at Greenlawn Cemtery, Nahant, Massachusetts

Nahant, Massachusetts is a coastal community in Essex County.  It is almost an island, but it is reached by a mile long causeway from the city of Lynn.  From Nahant one can see the North Shore up to Marblehead, or south towards Winthrop and Boston.

The Greenlawn Cemetery was founded in 1858, and previous Nahant residents were buried in the city of Lynn.  It is listed on the Register of Historic Places by the United State Department of the Interior.  If you need help finding a burial at Greenlawn Cemetery you can contact the town hall or the Nahant Historical Society.

I had fun exploring Nahant with my godfather.  His mother was from the Gove family, which lived in Nahant since the early 1800s, when the first Gove came down the coast from Seabrook, New Hampshire.  My godfather knew his mother's grave, and her immediate family, and we were able to find all the Nahant Goves in his lineage in this one little cemetery.

The other side reads simply GOVE

The first stone we saw was my godfather's mother, who is listed with her parents. 

Charles Edward Gove and Elvira Elizabeth Whitney were his great grandparents

Worthen Gove and Emeline Spencer were his 2x great grandparents

The sides of this obelisk also list children and Worthen's mother, Elizabeth Chase, the 3x great grandmother.

The Nahant Gove lineage:

Generation 1.  William Gove, born 15 February 1794 in Seabrook, New Hampshire, died 1834 in Seabrook (we need to find his burial place next!), son of Levi Gove and Mary Chase; married in 1815 to Elizabeth Chase, daughter of Aquila Chase and Anna Moulton, born 28 November 1796 in Seabrook, died 1882 in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Generation 2. Worthen Augustus Gove, born 12 July 1819 in Seabrook, New Hampshire, died 28 March 1885 in Nahant; married on 15 January 1836 in Lynn to Emeline A. Spencer, daughter of William Spencer and Mary Gale Homan, born 12 April 1819 in Beverly, Massachusetts, died 9 February 1897 in Dorchester, Massachusetts.  Worthen walked to Lynn from Seabrook, New Hampshire when he was only thirteen years old, to find work in the shoe factories. 

Generation 3. Charles Edward Gove, born 23 July 1839 in Lynn, died 26 January 1920 in Nahant, married Elvira E. Whitney, daughter of Charles Whitney and and Adeline Strong, born 26 November 1833 in Dublin, New Hampshire, died 15 April 1901 in Nahant.

Generation 4. George Alvah Gove, born  17 September1870 in Nahant, died 1945 in Beverly, Massachusetts; married  on 16 April 1894 to Frances L. Harris, sister to the wife of George's brother Charles,  born 12 April 1873 in New London Connecticut, died 1962 in Beverly, Massachusetts.  He was once secretary to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who summered in Nahant, and founded the Gove Lumber Company in Beverly, Massachusetts with his brother Charles Gove. 

Generation 5. Grace Mildred Gove, born 18 October 1897 in Nahant, died 18 March 1934 in Beverly; married Erwin McKenney as his first wife. 

This genealogical information was gleaned from the cemetery, vital records and from the book History and Genealogy of the American Family of Gove and Notes of European Goves, by W. H. Gove, 1922.  The Gove book can be read at Ancestry.com, and reprints are available from Higginsons. 

--------------

Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo