18th Century Gravestone Found In Pa. Returns Home To West Newbury

This is a story about an epidemic, a little girl and an old grave.
Abigail Chase was born in 1734 on a farm in West Newbury, Massachusetts. She died of throat distemper, now known as diphtheria, when she was less than two years old. Diphtheria is a bacterial infection that attacks the respiratory system. It causes the infected person to suffocate — and most of those infected were children. More than 1,000 children in Essex County died as the disease swept through the region.

"Her family was devastated," said Susan Edwards, collections and development manager at the Museum of Old Newbury. "She and her two sisters all died within ten days of each other. There were still several children left, but having three of your youngest children die in that short period of time was devastating."

Abigail's parents purchased three gravestones and buried Abigail and her sisters in the family grave in West Newbury. At some point in the latter part of the last century, Abigail's stone disappeared, though according to Edwards, no one knows exactly when.

Now, nearly 300 years after Abigail's burial, that stone has been found in Pennsylvania, and has been returned to its original plot.

Ron Pook, founder of the auction house Pook & Pook Inc. outside Philadelphia, discovered the stone at an abandoned farm.

"[He] was asked to take a look to find scrap iron, and beautiful hinges," said Cynthia Lawrence, who works for the auction house. "It was laying in the dirt."

The stone had the names of Abigail and her parents, with a death's head carved on top and rosettes on either side. Each letter "A" was splayed wide — the only man known for carving the letter that way worked in Essex County.

Edwards said she was initially skeptical when Pook called the museum, telling them about his discovery.

"The museum receives calls from auction houses, [and] usually it's to say we've got this very fine Newbury piece...and then there's a hard sell," she said. "Ron...he said 'I want you to have this. I don't believe in auctioning gravestones, it's just not right.'"

The auction house used a flatbed antique hauler to send the headstone home.

As it happens, the discovery of the gravestone also revealed a personal tie. Lawrence, one of Pook's employees, was researching and writing about Chase and the diphtheria epidemic.

"I looked up Abigail's history and I'm reading about this terrible pandemic, which made my hair stand up because of what we were going through," she said, "and I keep reading, thinking these names sound a little familiar. And using one of the genealogical databases, I looked, and sure enough we shared an ancestor."

"My ninth great grandfather was Abigail's grandfather. And so her dad and my eighth grandfather were brothers."

For both Lawrence and Edwards, the stone is a work of art, and the only mark Abigail left on the world.

"It is a piece of folk art," said Edwards. "[It's] a piece of family history and genealogy, and it has closed the circle for everybody."

The Museum of Old Newbury and the Trustees of the Bridge Street Cemetery will unveil Abigail Chase's returned gravestone on Friday, August 6.