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Tuesday, May 01, 2007

A GRAVE MATTER



I got an email from Chris Dunham (with whom I share
Dunham ancestry) about a news story concerning an
interesting discovery up in Maine. The clipping is from a
weekly named the Advertiser Democrat which I believe
is a paper from Norway, Maine but the farm in question
is in North Paris, which is in Oxford County.




Chris tells me Dunham Road is likely not named after our
Dunham line but for another family in the area with the same
name. The name and death date of Sally Dunham plus the
name of the husband, James, matches up with my ancestress
Sally Houghton who was married to James Dunham. She’s
buried in West Paris and there’s a headstone on her grave
there.




So, why another gravestone? James and Sally’s family moved
about a bit after her death and it’s not improbable that her
grave was moved as well and the stone left behind.




As to why it ended up under the barn I suppose the next owners
of the farm found it and in an example of true Yankee frugality
perhaps might have decided it might come in handy one day!




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