Last weekend we traveled to Chestnut Grove Cemetery in Ashtabula, Ohio, to see the memorial for the Ashtabula Train Disaster. That will be an upcoming post. After viewing that memorial and looking for a few gravestones that had been mentioned on reviews of the cemetery (yes, we cemetery enthusiasts do that sort of thing), I started wandering around.
And I found myself in front of this very old tombstone.
I read it aloud excitedly:
In memory of Joseph, son of the Rev.d Joseph & Mrs. Lois Badger, who departed this life April 17, 1816 in the 14[th] year of his age after three days painful sickness.
His mother died August 1818, aged 64.
You may remember Reverend Joseph Badger from this post. Those of you with exceptional memories (or who click the link) will remember that there were in fact two Joseph Badgers, both preachers and missionaries, running around the Western Reserve in the 19th century, but I am fairly confident that this is the one we previously discussed.
On the way into town, I noticed signs for Austinburg, which is where Badger founded the first congregational church in the Western Reserve. He and his family also lived in Ashtabula for a time. The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History confirms that his first wife was named Lois and she died in 1818, and that Joseph was the name of one of their six children. The Ohio Historical Society state
A Grave Concern 