242 HIS TOR V OF CO HA SSE T. 



the old gravestones.* The earliest date on them is 1713- 

 14, when the little four-year-old daughter Experience was 

 buried. 



A few hundred yards west of this there is another 

 burial place beside Rattlesnake Run on the south side of 

 the road. The earliest stone is for Mrs. Elizabeth 

 Nichols, who died in 1746, whom we remember as 

 Daniel Lincoln's daughter, a child of one of the first 

 homes. 



For the Rocky Nook settlers a cozy little cemetery 

 was made on the north side of Cedar Street near 

 Turkey Meadow, the earliest stones being dated May 4, 

 1760, when the wives of both Jonathan and Obadiah 

 Beal died. 



The Beech wood Cemetery was purchased in 1737,! out 

 of the front end of the lots of Aaron Pratt and Isaac 

 Bates, by a syndicate consisting of Jonathan Pratt, 

 Stephen Stoddard, Jr., Israel Whitcomb, Ebenezer Kent, 

 Prince Joy, and Joshua Bates, Jr. It was a strip of land 

 one and a half rods wide and twelve rods long, divided 

 into six lots, where the dead of that neighborhood might 

 be buried. 



The burial services were sad and silent, without hymn 

 or scripture or poem or sermon, when all stood bathed in 

 grief and in sympathy. 



But this chapter must not end in sadness. The fire- 

 sides of olden time were enlivened by many games in 

 winter evenings, and in summer the bathing or boating 

 or other outdoor amusements were indulged by natures 

 which no hard labor could suppress. The huskings and 

 quiltings and dances of our ancestors have been frequently 

 told. 



One custom as old as humanity and a perpetual source 



* Dr. O. H. Howe has carefully copied all of these inscriptions as well as those 

 in the neighboring burial place at Rattlesnake Run. 

 t The deed is in the historical collection. 



