Cemetery Mystery in Greenfield

They knew right away that this mystery was right up my alley.

Greenfield's DPW found what appeared to be a grave stone while excavating for a new sidewalk on Pond Street. After assuring them there was very little chance that this baby was buried there, or that the stone had washed across the street from Federal St. I sent out a call to my Facebook network. We didn't find Horace Eugene Roberts in Greenfield Deaths, but there were several trees posted on Ancestry.com that had information on this family.

I found a Hart family organization web site and made contact with the owner - Mrs. Roberts was a Hart. Betty Patterson in California was very interested in finding out more. She had information that they were buried in Green River Cemetery, and sure enough, a call to Snow & Sons confirmed that there is a family plot there.

I was able to photograph their grave stones at Green River and post them at Findagrave.com for all to see. This stone was likely a carver's mistake. The stone in the cemetery has a rectangular block on a carved base, with an oblesk top. Horace was the first burial, and the other family members were added, with individual markers for each of them also placed in the plot.

It seems Horace's mother, Mary died a few years later. His father remarried, and is also in this plot, along with Horace's two sisters, Mary Cordelia and Charlotte. Census records find the family in New York City in 1860 and 1870, but the girls were with family in Greenfield after their father remarried. They lived with Frank Thompson, and later their aunt, Susan Nims. Mary was a teacher, and Charlotte attended Wellsley and also taught there.