First published on January 3, 2016.
While I was visiting home for Thanksgiving, I took my family on an expedition to see the graves of our ancestors that we have never seen before. We visited four graveyards in the town of Greenwich, Connecticut and saw the gravestones of seven of my ancestors. I think most of my family was creeped out after awhile, but I really wasn’t. The day of the expedition was warm but overcast and raining on and off, so an overall creepy day, I don’t blame them. The only time I was startled was when the bells tolled church next to the graveyard we were visiting. I also tried to get some rubbings from the gravestones, but with the equipment that I had and the conditions of the gravestones, I wasn’t able to get a good rubbing. This will be a multi-part installment, examining the ancestors whose gravestones I found as well as a brief history of the graveyards (if possible).
The first graveyard that we visited was the Putnam Cemetery. This was the biggest graveyard, and it had many famous graves, at least famous for Connecticut. George W. Bush’s grandparents are buried there, as well as various U.S. Senators. Victor Borge, a pianist and comedian who once said, “The difference between and violin and viola is that a viola burns longer.” There wasn’t a website for the graveyard so we didn’t know when it opened, but we went anyway. Because this cemetery was so huge, at first it was daunting to find the two graves we were looking for. After about ten minutes, my brother found the two, they were a row apart. The first was the grave of Peter Husted, my sixth great grandfather.
Like I said the gravestones weren’t in a great condition. The moss and erosion of the stone made reading in the stone difficult and taking the rubbings impossible. It was easier to look at the stones from farther away than up close. I think that the gravestone says:
In memory of Peter Husted
Who died
March 24, 1821
in his 79 yr.
Peter Husted was born May 9th in 1742 to Moses Husted and Susannah Mead in Greenwich, Connecticut (his info comes from Ye Historie of Ye Town of Greenwich). He married Eunice Lyon on February 11th, 1768. They had nine children:
- Amos, b. December 2, 1769
- Cynthia, b. September 22, 1770
- Peter, b. October 11, 1772
- Elnathan, b. January 16, 1775
- Moses, b. December 19, 1776
- Aaron, b. January 23, 1779
- Caleb, b. March 2, 1782
- Eunice, b. January 21, 1784
- Ebson, b. February 25, 1787
Eight of his children survived into adulthood. Two of his children are my direct ancestors Elnathan Husted and Cynthia Husted whose children, they would have been cousins, married each other.
The only other information that I have about Peter is that he was a soldier in the Revolutionary War under Captain Abraham Mead. The lieutenant of that company was Odle Close, another one of my sixth great grandfathers ( His daughter Nancy would marry Peter’s son Elnathan). Peter is listed as “returned having deserted at New York in August, 1776″. But, “It will, however, be noted that some of these men reentered the service and should have been returned only as ‘missing’, instead of ‘deserted’.”
I definitely have to do more research regarding the American Revolution in Connecticut and maybe I can learn more about Peter. I would hope that he did reenter the service, but as of right now, I can’t be sure.
Next in this series is Peter’s son Elnathan Husted.
My Origin Stories 