Tombstone Tuesday ~ Five Fletchers on one Tombstone

This tombstone was photographed at the Forefather's Burial Ground in Chelmsford, Massachusetts

panel 1:

Rebekah

Sept. 24

1778

In the

? year of

her Age

panel 2:

Jepthae

died Sept

26th 1778

In the 4th

year of

his age.

He lies in the

same grave

as his

mother

panel 3:

In Memory of

Mrs Hannah

Fletcher wife

of Lieut. Benjn

Fletcher who

departed this

Life Sept 26th

1778 in the 30th

year of her Age

panel 4:

Mary

died Octr

3d 1778

In the 9th year of

her Age.

panel 5:

Sarah

died Octr

5th 1778

In the 6th

year of 

her Age

Hannah Parker, daughter of Isaac Parker,  married Benjamin Fletcher in Chelmsford on 29 January 1767.  Obviously, some contagious childhood disease struck the Fletcher household and killed these four little children and their mother, all within two weeks of each other in the autumn of 1778.  Their eldest child, Hannah, born 1767 was the lone survivor.  This pathetic tombstone lists all the victims.  Benjamin remarried to Ann Spaulding on 21 October 1779 and had three more children.


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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Tombstone Tuesday ~  Five Fletchers on one Tombstone", Nutfield Genealogy, posted October 4, 2016, (http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/10/tombstone-tuesday-five-fletchers-on-one.html: accessed [access date]).