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Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Dr. Ebenezer Wilkinson of Tamworth, New Hampshire - Tombstone Tuesday

These tombstones are located at the Tamworth Town Cemetery (also known as Ordination Rock Cemetery) in Tamworth, New Hampshire.


DR. EBENEZER WILKINSON
Died
Oct. 10, 1865
AE. 67


SARAH
Wife of 
DR. E. WILKINSON
DIED
Nov. 15, 1884
AE. 84 Yrs


ELIZABETH W.
Wife of
Benja. M. Hill,
a daughter of
Dr. Wilkinson
DIED
Dec. 2, 1853,
AE. 27 ys, 9ms, & 10 ds.


HARRIET O.
daughter of
Benja. M. Hill,
DIED
Jan. 31, 1854,
AE 2ms. 10ds.



ABBY R. HILL,
Daughter of
B. M. & E. W. Hill,
DIED
Jan. 7, 1861
AEt. 11 yrs 2 mos.


Dr. Ebenezer Wilkinson (1798 - 1865) is my 2nd cousin four generations removed.  We are both descendants of James Wilkinson (1730 - about 1805) and Hannah Mead (my 5th great grandparents, and Ebenezer's great grandparents), and Thomas Wilkinson (about 1690 - 1739) and Elizabeth Caverly of Portsmouth, New Hampshire (my 6th great grandparents, Thomas being named "of London" on his marriage record).

I have been curious about Dr. Wilkinson of Tamworth for many years.  In researching genealogy records in the state of New Hampshire, I often found marriage documents in Eaton town records recorded by "Dr. Ebenezer Wilkinson, Esq." or "Ebenezer Wilkinson, Justice of the Peace".  I even took a trip to Tamworth's famous Remick Museum to speak to the staff about Dr. Wilkinson.  The Remick Museum on Cleveland Hill Road in Tamworth is the home of the country doctors Edwin Remick (1866 - 1935) and son Edwin Remick, Jr. (1903 - 1993).  No one there had heard of Dr. Wilkinson.  This just made me even more curious about him!

It turns out that Dr. Ebenezer Wilkinson was buried right down the street at the Tamworth Town Cemetery on Cleveland Hill Road.  Since the elder Dr. Remick was born in Tamworth to parents, grandparents, and great grandparents who had all lived in Tamworth, I'm sure they must have known Dr. Wilkinson. 

This summer my sister moved to the town of Tamworth, and bought a house on Cleveland Hill Road, right down the street from both the Remick Museum and the Tamworth Town Cemetery.  Small worth, 'eh?  I told her about this coincidence, and my brother-in-law went straight to the Tamworth Historical Society to find more about Dr. Wilkinson.  It turns out that he lived on Cleveland Hill Road about two farms down, between my sister and the cemetery.

Here is what I know about Dr. Wilkinson:

Ebenezer Wilkinson, son of Ebenezer Wilkinson and Elizabeth Durgin, was born on 26 July 1798 in New Hampshire (town unknown), and died 10 October 1865 in Tamworth.  He married on 24 February 1825 in Parsonsfield, Maine to Sarah Lougee, daughter of Deacon John Lougee and Elizabeth Smith.  They had three daughters, Elizabeth born about 1826; Sarah E, born about 1846; and Abbie R., born abut 1850.

Ebenezer attended both the Fryeburg Academy and the Limerick Academy in Maine.  He studied to become a physician with Dr. Moses Sweat of Parsonsfield, Maine, and with Dr. Alexander Ramsey.  He attended some classes at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. [ He is listed under "non-graduates" of the Medical School, Medical Class of 1825] He first practiced medicine for eight years in Effingham, and then went to Tamworth.  Perhaps he met his future wife while he was apprenticing with Dr. Sweat of Parsonsfield?

His daughter Elizabeth Hill is buried beside Dr. Wilkinson and his wife, along with two of her young daughters.  Mother and one child died within a few months of each other.  Perhaps the mother died in childbirth, and the baby was sickly?  Who knows, because the records are incomplete.  Benjamin Hill, the husband removed to Barton, Vermont where census records show a wife named "Elizabeth" and children.  He was back in Tamworth by the 1870 and 1880 census with his 2nd wife Elizabeth and their four children.

The eleven year old Abbie R. Hill is another child of Benjamin Hill and his first wife, Elizabeth Wilkinson.  She appears to be named for her mother's sister. 

Elizabeth's sisters (daughters of Dr. Ebenezer Wilkinson) are Sarah E. Wilkinson who married Almon P. Cooley on 19 May 1864 in Tamworth, had six children, and lived in Lawrence, Massachusetts and in Goffstown, New Hampshire; and Abbie R. Wilkinson for whom I have no further information.  Did she marry, too?

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Dr. Ebenezer Wilkinson of Tamworth, New Hampshire - Tombstone Tuesday", Nutfield Genealogy, posted September 10, 2019, (https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2019/09/dr-ebenezer-wilkinson-of-tamworth-new.html: accessed [access date]).

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