Low Down Articles
Echoes from the Past
Article 52 of 111
This article first appeared in the "Echoes from the Past" column of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
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Not Always as They Seem
It has been said, and it has been mentioned in this column, that the oldest known memorial stone in the National Capital. area is that of Thomas Wright, older brother by a year of Philemon Wright, Hull's founder. Thomas died on the 18 Sept 1801, within a few months of his arrival with the party of settlers.
Although the memorial rests in the Protestant Burying Ground at Old Chelsea, Quebec, I personally doubt whether the remains of Thomas ever came to rest here at all. I would suggest the incising and setting up of the memorial came much later.
My reasoning is that the Wright party of settlers did not have within its number a stone mason capable of preparing the type of memorial which is situated in the burying ground at Old Chelsea. The odds against this happening are just too high. The settlers were just farmers, not even timber men, that came later.
The clincher to my contention appears to be the nearby footstone with the one word FATHER incised. This suggests to me that as the children of Thomas grew to adulthood they remembered their father by the installation of the memorial at Old Chelsea. Why at Old Chelsea and not near Philemon and his sister-in-law at the cemetery of St. James Church in Hull? Perhaps we shall never know.
Another part of the mystery is what happened to Mary Sprague, wife of Thomas Wright and mother of his children? She was born the same year as Thomas ‑1759 (they married in 1783) but nothing is known of her death. There is no mention of her on the memorial stone, and no footstone with MOTHER has been located.
theory which could fit the current interpretation is that she re-married to someone of whom her offspring did not approve. Did she return to Cambridge, Massachusetts, from whence she came to marry Thomas? It's intriguing isn't it? What's your theory?