{"id":79405,"date":"2021-07-20T11:59:56","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T15:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=79405"},"modified":"2021-07-22T12:56:04","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T16:56:04","slug":"salem-uproar-over-dilapidated-tombs-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/salem-uproar-over-dilapidated-tombs-part-iv.html","title":{"rendered":"Salem Uproar over Dilapidated Tombs, Part IV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry continues her story about a controversy in Salem, Massachusetts, over the treatment of some Quaker tombs in 1835, focusing on Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch. Melissa is a genealogist who has a blog, AnceStory Archives<\/a>, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Author\u2019s Note:<\/em><\/strong> I came across this story while researching the 17th century Quaker families in Salem, Massachusetts. They are the ancestors of the tombs in Salem that are the focus of today\u2019s story. A list of these Salem Quakers can be found in Jonathan M. Chu\u2019s book Neighbors, Friends, or Madmen: The Puritan Adjustment to Quakerism in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts Bay<\/em> (p. 169-173). These Quakers are also cited in the court documents available online at the University of Virginia site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To recap: In 1835 the Board of Health in Salem placed an announcement in the newspaper which created a sensation. The board reported that several tombs in public burial grounds were in a ruinous state, and requested owners to come forward to mark the appropriate names and fix up the tombs. For tombs left unclaimed or undefined, the board announced that it would repair \u2013 and then sell \u2013 those tombs.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration:<\/a>
Illustration: Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch, son of Habakkuk Bowditch and Mary Ingersoll, born in Salem, Massachusetts. A great navigator, astronomer, and mathematician whose achievements are still celebrated today, along with his \u201cThe New American Practical Navigator,\u201d considered \u201cthe seaman\u2019s Bible.\u201d Portrait painted by Chas. Osgood. Courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum, Phillips Library, from the collection of Frank Cousins.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the Board of Health had some of the remains (both bones and ashes) removed in preparation for the repair and sale of the tombs, two of the tombs\u2019 owners \u2013 Jonathan Ingersoll Bowditch and Lucius Manlius Sargent \u2013 found out what was going on and came to the burying grounds to examine what had been done. Bowditch and Sargent were horrified by what they found, as they reported in a letter published in the Salem Gazette<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Salem Gazette (Salem, Massachusetts), 15 September 1835, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not only was the legality \u2013 and morality \u2013 of the Board\u2019s actions being questioned, there was even some doubt if the tombs were really in the state of disrepair the Board claimed. Another Bowditch, Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch, reported that he personally saw to the repair of two of the tombs in question \u2013 those of John Turner and Robert Kitchen \u2013 just 12 years before!<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Salem Gazette (Salem, Massachusetts), 15 September 1835, page 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Bowditch, along with the Sargent and Derby families, made a very public appeal to the Selectmen of the town of Salem.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Salem Gazette (Salem, Massachusetts), 25 September 1835, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the Selectmen told the outraged families that their issue was with the Board of Health, not them, Dr. Bowditch and the Sargent and Derby families \u2013 joined by a member of the Winthrop family \u2013 next made a public appeal directly to the community of Salem.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Salem Gazette (Salem, Massachusetts), 25 September 1835, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This emotional appeal reads:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Board have formally and officially taken possession of the tombs of our ancestors, whose bones they have cast forth, and which are lying, at this moment, more or less exposed to the gaze of idle curiosity, in the burying grounds of Salem. The Board have publicly advertised these tombs for sale. We turn for redress to the Selectmen; they have no power in this respect; and the Board of Health intimate not their willingness to grant us the slightest satisfaction for the wrong. The act of ownership remains, to the best of our knowledge, unreversed upon the records of that Board.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cherish an affectionate respect for the ancient residence of our ancestors, the town, where they were born, and where they were buried; and we now ask the good citizens of that town, we ask them, in a kind and Christian spirit, which teaches us to live as peaceably as possible with all men, will they permit us to enquire of the legal tribunals of our country, if our ancestors have or have not a right to sleep in their peaceful graves?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe delay even of a single day, under the well known, existing circumstances of the case, is eminently painful to our feelings; but we are disposed that patience should have its perfect work: we desire to avoid, on our part, that course of precipitancy and error, whose effects we have such present reason to deplore in the conduct of others.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Continuing to research this story, I found a passage worthy of mention in Memoir of Nathaniel Bowditch<\/em>, authored by Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch (the son of Dr. Bowditch):<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Bowditch often mentioned that his grandmother [Mary Bowditch n\u00e9e Turner], on her deathbed, refused to be buried in this tomb, saying that, many years before, at the funeral of one of the family, a mourner took up her father\u2019s skull, and holding it before her, said, \u2018This is the skull of an Indian warrior.\u2019 She seemed to have a prophetic dread of the possibility of the outrage subsequently to be committed and preferred that her remains should be consigned to the safer custody of her parent earth.\u201d (p. 118)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite Mary\u2019s concerns, her ashes were deposited in the Turner tomb, to be among the ashes of all her relatives of many former generations.<\/p>\n

Genealogy Note:<\/em><\/strong> Mary (daughter of John Turner II and Mary Kitchen) married shipmaster and merchant Ebenezer Bowditch.<\/p>\n

According to Memoir of Nathaniel Bowditch<\/em>:<\/p>\n