Greenwich Life As It Is-And Was: Edward Mead and His Beautiful Home-Other Prominent Men (1923)

Edward Mead House (1832). Known as 'Boxwoods,' it is at the 
intersection of East Putnam Avenue and Indian Field Road. 

Source: Greenwich News and Graphic: Friday, June 8, 1923. L.B. Edwards. Page 7, Column 1. 

In the article of a few weeks ago, relative to the strong men, mentally and physically, living in Greenwich about the time the Greenwich Graphic was first issued, the statement was made that there may have been others.

Interred in New Burial Grounds Assoc. Cemetery,
next to the Second Congregational Church of Greenwich. 

One in mind was Edward Mead. He passed away a few years previous to that time, but for the greater part of his life was contemporaneous with them. He was a man so universally respected, and of such admirable qualities of character that some mention should be made of his life in the community.

He lived on what may be called the ancestral estate, a large farm located on the Boston Post Road, the land being situated on both sides of that now greatly traveled thoroughfare, in the vicinity of what is now Indian Field Road and in the fine white frame two-story and a half house on the north side of the road, having been a conspicuous landmark for years.

The farm has been in the possession of this branch of the Mead family for a longer period of time than any other farm has been owned by any one family in the Town of Greenwich, it is safe to say, members of Edward Mead's family still owning most of the farm and living in the attractive house.

Until a few years ago there was a number of farms that had been owned by one family in each instance, since pre-Revolutionary days, but they have now become the costly estates for which Greenwich is noted.

Mr. Mead's son, Daniel Merritt Mead was the first Captain of Company I, Tenth Connecticut Volunteers. Benjamin Wright, father of Wilbur S. Wright, was made lieutenant when the company was organized, and when Daniel Merritt Mead was promoted to Major of the regiment, soon after the Greenwich company had gone to the front Benjamin Wright was made captain. Robert M. Wilcox, vice-president and secretary of the Putnam Trust Company, is a grandson of Edward Mead. 

Previous to 1832 the house in which the Mead family lived was situated on the opposite side of the street from the present residence. In 1832 the present house on the north side was built and when completed was considered in every way one of the finest houses in Greenwich. 

This is the rear side of the Edward Mead House (1832). 

Stage coaches were making regular trips between New York and Boston then and the attention of the passengers in them almost always was called to the house as one worthy of especial notice on the stagecoach route.

But the chief feature of interest was the front door entrance; that is probably the most beautiful one architecturally of any house in the Town of Greenwich. There are those much more costly, but none of more artistic appearance. 

The entrance became so noted that the attention of Wallace Nutting the artist, whose pictures and colors have been sold in large numbers in all parts of the country, was attracted to it, with two young ladies of Greenwich dressed in colonial style, ascending the front steps, the title of the picture being, "A trip to the Squire's." (See above)

Other objects that are of interest at the front of the house are the box shrubs. There are three of them, gigantic specimens each side of the front steps having one and they are probably 92 years old, the same number of years as the house. The one in the garden just west of the front lawn is 114 years old, having been planted in 1809.

Another old resident who should receive special attention is the 'Sage of New Lebanon,' as he was called, Milo Mead, whose memory is revered by the older residents of the East Port Chester District, for which section he was always ready to spend his money and time to improve in every way possible, and although he did not succeed in having the name changed to New Lebanon, much to his regret, that did not deter him from working for the interest of that section. 

He gave away his land and money freely for public improvements. He was a fine old man, and it was certainly a great pleasure to talk with him. He lived in the little story and a half frame house on a knoll at Byram Shore facing Long Island Sound, from which there was an unmolested view of Long Island and the Sound. The house looked somewhat incongruous situated near the fine residences of Byram Shore, but certainly added a picturesqueness to the scenery thereabouts that it would not otherwise have had.

Mr. Mead's latch string was always out, and he welcomed stranger as well as friend to his home,And he welcomed stranger as well as friend to his home, and seemed delighted to talk about New Lebanon and the days that have passed during his long life in Greenwich.  

He had amassed a considerable fortune that he had acquired by the sale of a large part of his farm land for Byram Shore residences. He always lived the simple life, however, and was noted for his generosity and kindness of heart as well as his interest in New Lebanon.

Then there was Shadrach M. Brush. What a fine old gentleman he was too! Having deserved reputation for his over gentle disposition, yet, it was not always that way, according to a statement made by him in the presence of the writer. He had an ungovernable temper when a boy and young man, and only narrowly escaped injuring a companion by losing it. That taught him a lesson and ever after that time he controlled his temper and was known to be a man of the gentlest ways. 

Mr. Brush was a public spirited man. Besides the fine farm in Stanwich that is still owned and occupied by members of his family, Mr. Brush possessed large holdings of real estate located in the Borough, much of which he improved. He was engaged in retail business in the borough for a number of years, retiring after he had become advanced in years, his sons succeeding him. 

His home in the Borough was sold not long ago to the Knights of Columbus for their headquarters, which makes a central and desirable location for this prosperous organization which makes a central and desirable location for this prosperous organization, so well known for activities in the late war.

Greenwich Life As It Is-And Was: Mrs. Caroline Mead's Real Estate Promotion and Success (1923)

Source: Greenwich News & Graphic. Greenwich Life As It Is-And Was: Mrs. Caroline Mead's Real Estate Promotion and Success, By Lucian B. Edwards. Second Section, Page 1.

Caroline Mills Smith Mead.

The first of Greenwich farming land to be developed into residential sites was owned by a woman who promoted what proved to be one of the most successful real estate operations ever planned for Greenwich.

She was Mrs. Caroline M. Mead of Cos Cob, widow of William H. Mead, "White Oak Bill" he was called by almost everybody who was acquainted with him, to distinguish him from another William H. Mead who had a saddlery shop on old Church Road, and was known as "Saddlery Bill."

There were so many families living in the town half a century or longer ago, by the name of Mead, that the surname was seldom mentioned when the men of the families of that name for spoken of or two. It was always "Lyman," "Cornelius," "Henry," "William J.," or other of the given names.

"White Oak Bill" began to sell off some of his extensive farmland centrally located at Cos Cob, before the Belle Haven Land Company was organized, to purchase the Bush farm for development into "high-class"  residential sites.

The Mead home, now the site of Cos Cob Elementary School. 

William H. Mead's farm consisted of quite a large number of acres located on both sides of the Boston Post Road near Strickland Pond. 

The house in which the family lived was of the Colonial architecture, a large two story frame dwelling facing the southeast having a spacious piazza along the entire front. It was located on the site of the present Cos Cob school building, the street now called Orchard Street passing the front. 

Between the front fence and the street was a wide lawn, such as was customary to have a front of most of the houses in. 

When the Mead house was built long before the stage coaches stopped making trips over the highway, the residence and the enormous white oak tree, that stood on the lawn just in front of the gate opening to the premises, were conspicuous objects of interest to in the stagecoaches.

This white oak tree had more than local fame. It was a big tree at the time of the Revolutionary War, and when the Mead family lived on the farm it had a circumference of at least 30 feet at the base, and the diameter of the trunk was not less than 10 feet at the narrowest part. Its great branches spread across both highways and over the house. 

In a gale that occurred many of the branches were broken off and the remainder were removed where they grew out from the trunk. 

There was a big opening at the base, and the boys and girls of Cos Cob used to play around the old oak, hiding in the interior. 

Finally the old trunk became unsafe and it was taken down, thus removing the last vestige of one of the important landmarks of the vicinity.

William H. Mead really began the development of his farm land into residential sites. He opened Mead avenue through his land from the Boston Post Road to the River Road, making a fine wide street, and the lots very large. 

Fine houses were seen in process of building, the latest to be erected being that of Frank Lockwood, at the northeast corner of Mead Avenue at the River Road which was completed some fifteen or twenty years ago. It was called the "Fifth Avenue" of Cos Cob and was considered the select residential section of that part of the town. 

Mrs. Mead, who was a tall, slender woman of energy, progressive ideas and unusual executive ability, had an attractive cottage built on a lot on the south side of the Post Road, north of Mead Avenue, to which she moved from the old house which she leased to Mrs. James Beecher, sister-in-law of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, where Mrs. Beecher had a young women's and girls school where Mrs. Beecher for a number of years.

Then Mrs. Mead started on her successful real estate career. 

She opened a street some 300 feet or more west of Mead Avenue, extending to Strickland Pond on the south and west, calling it Relay Place, where lots were sold and houses erected. 

Across the street from her cottage between the Post Road what was in early days called the King's Highway, was a triangular plot extending from Orchard Street to Diamond Hill. This land was divided into small smaller lots and a number of cottages were soon built on lots.

Joseph Lockwood, "Joe" they called him, who had become proprietor of the Greenwich drug store, purchased one of these building lots and had a two story frame building put up, the lower part having two stores and the upper part two flats. 

In one of the stores he opened a drug store, selling it to Dr. Lockwood of Stanwich, who conducted the store for a number of years. 

A grocery business was located in the other store, and there were indications at that time that there would be quite a business section in that vicinity. 

Later however, a brick store building and garage were built at "The Hub," where the retail business of Cos Cob has since continued.

Mead Circle: Suburban Avenue and other streets in Cos Cob. 

Mrs. Mead opened a street just east of Strickland Brook, from the Post Road north and curving to the road east, where a large number of very desirable building lots, that were easily sold at large prices for that time, were developed. 

They were good-sized lots and attractive houses were built, Mrs. Mead always insisting that houses built on the lots she sold should be attractive and a credit to the locality. 

She called the section Mead Circle. In recent years Mead Circle which is so desirably situated for cottages in every way, accessible to trolley line, desirable neighborhood and attractive surroundings, has been rapidly "built up."

Formerly Strickland Pond, the tide mill pond that furnished power for the grist mill on the Cos Cob Landing, and a fine fishing pond for snappers, crab and smelts, would be nothing but an unsightly mud pond for part of the time each day, when the tide was out. 

Grist mill at Cos Cob Landing. Strickland Pond is to the left. Cos Cob's
Bush Holley House would be behind the photographer's vantage point. 

After the grist mill ceased to grind, the sluiceway was closed so that water remained in the Strickland Pond all the time, making the section more attractive that it had ever previously had been. 

But the water became stagnant and offensive so a plan was devised to open the sluiceway at frequent intervals and that objection was easily overcome.

Mrs. Mead was actively engaged in the selling of her lots for a number of years, accumulating a considerable fortune in addition to that she had previously processed, from the sale of her lots. She sold her lots on easy terms to desirable purchasers, and offered every inducement to such persons to buy and build houses. 

Advancing years and family health compelled her to give up business activities and she retired for a quiet life, always however, seemingly intensely interested when questioned about her real estate operations. 

For more information on Caroline Mill Smith Mead see the following:

ANNOUNCEMENT: Caroline Mills Smith Mead Memorial Garden and Mead Family Cemetery at Cos Cob (Click Here)

Obituaries: Caroline Mills Mead (1910). (Click Here)

Obituary: Caroline Mills Mead (Greenwich News, 1910) (Click Here) 

Funeral of Mrs. Caroline M. Mead (1910). (Click Here) 

Caroline Mills Smith Mead's Real Estate Developments in Cos Cob (Click Here)

Portrait: Caroline Mills Smith (died 1910) (Click Here) 

Mrs. Caroline Mead Makes Many Bequests (1910) (Click Here) 

UPDATE: Caroline Mills Smith Mead Memorial Garden/Mead Cemetery, Cos Cob Mill Pond (Click Here) 

Re-introducing Ebenezer Smith (died 1873) and his wife, Rhoda Page and Charles E. Smith (Click Here) 

The Smith Family Cemetery in the Roxbury section of Stamford, Connecticut. This is where Caroline Mills Smith Mead's ancestors are interred -including her mother, Rhoda Smith. (Click Here) 

Their Golden Wedding: Mr. & Mrs. Isaac Lewis Mead and Greenwich Fifty Years Ago (1905)

 

Source: The Greenwich Graphic. December 2, 1905. Page 5. 

Mr. and Mrs. I. L. Mead Receive Congratulations- Talks with Graphic About the Greenwich for 50 Years Ago. 

Mr. and Mrs. Isaac L. Mead held an informal reception at their home last Monday in observance of the 50th anniversary of their wedding. During the day more than a hundred persons paid their respects to the couple. Besides these Lombard Post G. A. R. called in a body, the deacons of the Congregational Church and the school visitors, as well as representatives of Acacia Lodge A and F. M. 

Many pretty presents were received by the pair. Among them were a gold Grand Army badge presented by Lombard Post, a gold lined silver fruit dish presented by the visitors and a gold Masonic emblem for Mr. Mead and a gold brooch for Mrs. Mead presented by Acacia Lodge.

Isaac L. Mead House, Lafayette Place, Greenwich. Circa 1890.

Mr. Mead is a native of Greenwich, there can hardly be found a man who has for so many years kept in such close touch with the town. His naturally fine intellect has preserved all its keeness and his physical faculties have not been impaired by age with the exception of his eyesight which he has almost entirely lost.

"There has been a great change in Greenwich since 50 years ago to-day," he said reminiscently to the GRAPHIC. "At the time I was married it was but a little village which had but little intercourse with the outside world. The railroad had been put through but a short time and a trip to New York was infrequent indeed to the average Greenwichite." 

"I think at that time there were but six houses of what is now Greenwich Avenue. The avenue was a mere road from the Post Road down to what is now the Steamboat dock. There were no sidewalks and the road was often in such a condition  that it was necessary to walk out into the lots to get out of the mud. The road was considerably used even before the railroad was put in, in going from the upper part of town to Capt. Caleb Merritt's sloop wharf.

"This sloop of Captain Merritt's plied between here and New York and was for a great many years a much used mode of transportation, not only of freight but of passengers. The sloop ran once a week. It started in the evening and if the weather was good generally arrived in New York It started in the evening and if the weather was good and generally arrived in New York somewhere near dawn.

"The business section of the town for the most part was near the corner of Sherwood Place and Putnam avenue was near the corner of Sherwood Place and Putnam Avenue, though there there were one or two stores, though there there were one or two stores adjacent to the building which is now called the Lenox House. The hotel was called the Mansion House and was kept by Mr. Augustus Lyon. It was the only hostelry in this part of the town.

Greenwich Avenue, 1890.

"There were no public improvements in town then, if you accept the roads. They were not even lights. I remember the first time lights were put on Greenwich avenue. I think it was just prior to the war, when the 8th regiment of militia was camping on Mr. Sandford Mead's lot.  I was then a member of the Board of Burgesses and I realized that there would be a great many people passing between the railroad and the campground and that there ought to be lights on Greenwich avenue. 

"At that time the Americus Club had a clubhouse on Indian Harbor Point where Mr. Benedict's place is now. They used great many lamps to light the woods up when they held an entertainment of any sort. I went to the club and as it was about time for it to close for the year, asked them for the use of the lamps. 

"When I got them I had them fixed to the trees all along Greenwich avenue. Those were the first lights on the avenue, but it was a long time before any were permanently placed there. 

"Practically no one outside knew of town, then, as a summer resort. One of the first people to make a summer home here was William L. Tweed. It was he who brought the Americus Club which through its members helped to spread the fame of Greenwich as a beautiful summer place.

"Then of course other people traveling through the town on the railroad noted its beauties and came here to try them. 

Indian Harbor, Commodore E.C. Benedict's home. 

"There is a rather amusing story told of the late Mr. H. M. Benedict, brother of Mr. E. C. Benedict whose elegant villa here is one of the most magnificent in the country.

"For some reason or other Mr. Benedict had come to town and he visited the cemetery. For some reason or other Mr. Benedict had come to town and he visited the cemetery. Going through it and reading various inscriptions, he remarked that there were an almost amazing number of persons who had died at the ages of eighty or ninety or even older.  

New Burial Grounds Association Cemetery, Greenwich. It is located
next to the Second Congregational Church. (Read here). 

"Ha,"he said with a smile, "if the place is so healthful that they all live to be eighty or more, it's just the place for me.' Somewhat later he came here to live, whether partly because of the incident or not, I don't know. 

"Seven years ago he died at an age that was not less than those he had marveled at, graven in the old cemetery." 

A Farmer's Opinion: Selling the Town Farm (1905), by Solomon Stoddard Mead

 

Solomon Stoddard Mead. 

Source: The Greenwich Graphic. December 2, 1905. Page 4. 

On Tuesday afternoon I attended a town meeting in Bruce's New Town Hall  held to take into consideration the propriety of selling the present town farm and removing the inmates to some other location in Greenwich. When I arrived at the hall it was already full to overflowing, and the meeting had already commenced. I could not hear one word to that was spoken, but I saw there was something going on inside by the uplifted hands of the people. 

I should think there was fully 1200 in the building at the time, and standing outside and in the entry way. Who was moderator, I had no idea, or what the people were voting for or against, and it is my opinion that far too many did not know how they voted, nor were their votes properly counted. No person could count those with any degree of accuracy at the time, and I look upon the whole transaction as a farce and a fizzle.

Now I am opposed to selling the town farm as it is the best possible plan to take care of the poor people of Greenwich. There they have all the comforts and benefits that could possibly be vouchsafed to them. It is a very healthy place. They can working raise vegetables and amuse themselves. 

Now if it was my case and perhaps I shall get there myself in the near future I should feel it was much more to my comfort to be on a farm than confined in a sanitarium. It was said to me that the farm was objectionable to the millionaires of Greenwich, that they can did not like the idea of living on the road over the hill to the poorhouse. Now where can they live if they do not come in sight of the poorhouse or the sanitarium or the poor people themselves. I cannot see any advantage arising by changing the poor. I cannot see any advantage arising by changing the poor. I can see they would be much better off as they are. A life in prison is much worse than a life on a beautiful farm like the present home for the poor of Greenwich.

I was not at all satisfied at the way the meeting was managed. I feel no one knows how many voted yes or voted no and also how many of them voted that had no right to a vote. I understand many millionaires were there and had everybody that they could control; to vote to sell the poor farm. Even gave them a holiday to do so and how much else I know not. These things are managed in a curious way, but in a way to reach the object for which they are sent.  I think the meeting was all wrong and if voted at all should be done by ballot and only the persons who are legally qualified should be allowed to vote. I for one object to the whole proceeding of Tuesday's vote on the question of selling the town farm. 

SOLOMON S. MEAD

THE MYSTERIOUS VAULT & OPENING THE MYSTERIOUS VAULT (1894)

 

BUILT BY SMUGGLERS, IT BECOMES A BURIAL PLACE FOR THE DEAD-MY ANCIENT FRIEND'S STORY.

Source: The Greenwich Graphic: March 17, 1894. By Ezekiel Lemondale, a.k.a., Judge Frederick A Hubbard.

To be featured on the Halloween, 31st of October, 2023 episode of the Greenwich, A Town For All Seasons Show Podcast. 

The Railroad Company, at its own expense will re-inter the bodies of the dead under the supervision of an undertaker, and such re-internment, if desired, will be in ground provided by the Company. H. Lynde Harrison

These were Judge Harrison’s words, addressed to the Railroad Commissioners at the Greenwich station last week, and duly reported in the GRAPHIC. The business of the hour was the submission for approval of the new layout, and the locality being discussed was the private cemetery on the Dougan property, near the Field Point Road.

Whose bones are to be lifted from beneath the rattle and roar of the consolidated trains? I have never heard of such a cemetery, and even Mr. Parker was in doubt of its existence. But he promptly sent a hall boy for my ancient friend who gave me its entire history. I repeat as nearly as I can the old man's words.

“About the year 1750 there came to this town from New York one William Bush, a young man of great wealth, the only son of a retired shipping merchant. His shoe buckles were of the finest wrought silver and his small clothes were of the choicest silk. He had the swiftest horses, the sleekest oxen and the greatest herd of sheep of any man hereabouts, and his acres were broad and fertile. He built him a home that was the talk of the town, and when he died he left a will duly probated January 8, 1802 that disposed of a large estate.

The century in which he died is still with us, but no one in life to-day remembers William Bush. My knowledge of him comes from my father, who was his neighbor and who regarded him with the highest esteem. His landed property included a large part of the southern portion of the town, and extended east almost to Cos Cob. Its northern boundary ran across the Field Point Road near the residence of James R. Mead.

“The cemetery was laid out by Captain Bush, as he was called, about five years after his arrival in town, and was designed wholly for a family burial place. But in the years immediately following the Revolutionary war, the burials there were numerous and the graves were made on all sides, far beyond the present narrow limits of the cemetery. 

On the outskirts many slaves were buried, and the pick and spade of the Italian during the coming summer, will turn up many an unexpected thigh-bone. The use of the cemetery has never been limited to the lineal heirs of Captain Bush, and many of his collateral heirs were buried there. Hence we have the names upon the stones of Bush Mead, Mary A. Sherwood, Matthew Mead, Mrs. Stephen Marshall, Rebecca Gilmore, Polly Mead and Justus B. Mead

“In the center of the plot is a vault, the roof of which is nearly level with the surrounding ground, and to one unacquainted with the fact, its existence would be unsuspected.

“A weird story, the truth of which has never been questioned, is told of this vault and the proof of its truth will be revealed when the old vault is laid open to the sunlight. Before the Revolutionary War, Great Britain levied a tax upon imports to the American colonies, the West India trade being included in the impost. The tax upon sugar, molasses and rum was particularly obnoxious to the colonists, and smuggling these commodities into the country through Long Island Sound, was indulged in to a considerable extent. 

Smuggled goods were secreted in barns, potato clears, amid caves in the rocks and in most cases beyond the reach of the revenue officers, although at times arrests and punishment followed such violations of the King’s law.

“One night, several years after Captain Bush had laid out his cemetery and two of his children have been interred there, he saw a light moving it a mysterious way through the grounds. The next night he looked for it, again but saw nothing, and as the graves were undisturbed, the fact soon escaped from his mind. 

A month or two after that he saw the light again. It came and it went like the flickering of a great candle. He called his dogs, and with his flint-lock over his shoulder he strode across the fields, to find nothing but a quiet burial place, with the mute, white headstones of his two children reflecting in the starlight. 

It troubled Captain Bush, for he feared that his nerves were breaking down and that the strange lights were but the fancies of a weakened mind. So he said nothing but watched from his window and noted every two or three weeks the peculiar coming and going of the light. 

He observed also that on the nights when he saw the light a strange black schooner, long, low and rakish, lay at anchor just outside Field Point. Sometimes he saw her come to anchor before the sun went down, but oftener she crawled in at the edge of the evening as the shades of night were settling across the water. 

“That the presence of this black schooner was accountable for the lights in the cemetery he felt certain, and he may have suspected their meaning, for on one occasions, in the broad daylight, he made his negro servant dig beneath the lovely lying sod in the cemetery yard. And the digging revealed the great wonder of those colonial days. Beneath the sod was a vault, unknown to the Captain, and supported, strange to say, by an arch of sea shells, many of them great tropical conch shell, wedged in one beside the other, and keyed in place by the battered fragments of coral reef. There was a noisome, musty smell in the place that suggests between decks of a slaver, and the slimy ooze upon the floor smacked of rum and molasses. 

“I never heard the value of the smugglers' treasure, but Captain Bush had all the barrels rolled into his cellar and many a glass of that Santa Cruz rum was drank by the great open fireplace in Captain Bush's hospitable home.

“No one ever knew when or by whom that vault was built but that it was built, and of sea shells, too, is very certain. And Captain Bush, to keep the smugglers out, he said, used to it for a vault for the dead, and scores of bodies, including the old captain's, were placed there in the years that followed.

“When the vault is torn to pieces this summer, and for the first time in one hundred and twenty-five years the sunlight reaches all its odd nooks and corners, and touches the glittering bits of ancient sea shells, you will realize that I have told you nothing but the truth.”

a. k. a., Judge Frederick Augustus Hubbard

Opening the Mysterious Vault

The Greenwich Graphic. May 19, 1894, Page 1. By Ezekiel Lemondale, a.k.a., Judge Frederick A Hubbard.

Featured on the Halloween, 31st of October, 2023 episode of the Greenwich, A Town For All Seasons Show Podcast. 

IN DISCLOSES A SIGHT THAT MAKES EVEN THE UNDERTAKER PALL-IT IS ESTIMATED THAT FIFTY BODIES WERE ENTOMBED HERE-NO CLUE AS TO THE IDENTITY OF ANY ONE OF THEM-THE INSIDE OF THE VAULT PRESENTED A SCENE THAT MIGHT BE LIKENED TO A NIGHTMARE. 

“We have opened that mysterious vault that the GRAPHIC  had a description of a few weeks ago," said undertaker Mead to a representative of this paper of the last week.

"Mr. W. S. Waterbury and myself are going down there early to-morrow morning, and don't you want to come along with us to see what the mysterious vault has disclosed?”

Bright and early Saturday morning Undertaker Mead and Mr. Waterbury with their cameras, and the writer, were at the door of this vault. Mr. Mead had to given instructions to his men to disturb nothing whatsoever inside of the vault until after he had taken a picture of it.

What a sight it presented, this dark recess–the abode of the dead–as we gazed inside, standing in the doorway! It was like a horrible nightmare after eating a hearty Thanksgiving dinner. The floor of the vault was covered with a mass of debris that once were human bones. There were skulls and all the bones that make up the body lying promiscuously around.  There did not seem to be any coffin or anything that looked like such a receptacle. But these had all probably rotted away and left nothing but what was white and hard. Mr. Mead thought that there must be about fifty bodies represented by these remains. It seemed to him that the coffins had been piled up one on top of another, and that the lower ones had rotted away, being the oldest, and the top ones had gradually fallen down until finally they had become mixed in one pile of bones.

Mr. Mead and Mr. Waterbury succeeded in taking a very excellent photograph of the inside of the vault, a copy of which lies on our table as we write, and it is a picture suggestive, realistic, and a shudder comes over one to look at it. 

Putnam Cemetery, Greenwich, Connecticut. 

One day last week, three carriages drove into the grounds of the Putnam Cemetery. They contained H. Lynde Harrison, Undertaker I. L. Mead, George G. McNall, James R. Mead, Henry Mead, Thomas Ritch and John Dayton. After some little consultation Mr. Harrison agreed to purchase for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad a plot of land twenty feet square, situated on the west side of Putnam Cemetery. This plot was obtained for the purpose of a burial place for the bodies to be removed from the vault and the cemetery back of the Mansion House, of which land the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company are to construct their additional tracks.

The Isaac Lewis Mead Building, Greenwich. 

The contract for removing these bodies was given to Undertaker I. L. Mead, with instructions to enclose all the remains found in the old vault in the center of the lot in Putnam Cemetery, and to remove all the other bodies to separate graves in this plot and to put the stones at the head or foot of them, as they were found in the old place. The mound in the center for those who were entombed in the vault to have a slab over it with a proper inscription to indicate where the remains came from.

On Thursday of last week, Mr. Mead, with a corps of workmen, began the work of removing these bodies. They knew where the vault was situated, and so dug down at the end of it to a distance to a distance of about three feet, and there they found the doorway of the tomb. 

At one time there had been a door hung on hinges, but this had been taken away, evidentially, and the aperture had been stoned up. It did not take long to force an entrance here, and by Friday the vault was opened for Mr. Mead's investigation. It seemed to the workmen as though the vault was full of bodies and those last there had determined to put in one more, and the last coffin had been placed in such a way as to give the impression that the opening was stoned up to keep it in place–– in another words the vault was as full as it could hold the last body was put into it, which was about thirty years ago. 

We said that there was nothing to show the identity of the bodies in the vault, but they did find one plate on which was the name of Brown, and this was all. So far as they could judge from what little woodwork could be seen, the coffins were not enclosed in the second box. Mr. Mead very carefully and thoroughly gathered up the remains in this vault and enclosed them in a very large box, and this was interred in the mound at Putnam Cemetery. There were about twenty-five single graves in this old cemetery; and they have all been opened and the contents carefully removed to their new resting place in Putnam Cemetery.

Mr. Mead thinks that the cemetery was a very old one, for he says he could not turn up the soil in any portion of it to any depth without coming across some bones. It is more than probable that this graveyard was used before the Revolutionary War, and that up to within about thirty years ago, and it was the cemetery for Horseneck.

These are all the names that could be deciphered on the head stones, Sarah, wife of Bush Mead; Bush Mead; Nancy, wife of Matthew Mead; Matthew Mead; My Mother, Pamelia, wife of Steven Marshall; In memory of Rebecca, wife of William Gilmore; In memory of Justin B. Mead; In memory of Polly Mead; To the memory of David Bush; Sarah, wife of David Bush, (David and Sarah are deposited in the vault); In memory of Samuel Bush; In memory of Ann Bush; Mary Aphelia, daughter of William and Mary Sherwood; Susan Denton; John Anderson John Anderson and wife.

The last body placed in the cemetery was H. Jane Davis, wife of a William Davis, June 17, June 17, 1867, aged 36 years.

Mr. Mead expects to have all the bodies removed this week. He has superintended the work himself, and no one could have exercised more care or done the work more conscientiously and thoroughly than he has. Thus doth the hand of time and the march of progress compel the old to give way to the new.

*The following was shared by John Bridge, Research Assistant with the Greenwich Historical Society's archival staff:

"The only William Bush who seems to fit the bill is Dr. William Bush (1737-c1802), son of Justus Bush and brother of David Bush of Bush-Holley House.

 

"He was born in Greenwich, and therefore would not have arrived from New York in 1750 as the only son of a retired shipping merchant -which, of course, might describe Justus Bush.

 

"Dr. William Bush’s will was, in fact, probated on January 8, 1801.

 

"We may never know who was finally buried in the Bush Cemetery at the mouth of Horseneck Brook, including the possibility of there being among them enslaved persons."

UPDATE from John Bridge, Greenwich Historical Society Archives, October 20, 2023:

The most accurate depiction of the cemetery appears to have been captured in a circa 1897 photograph taken from 350 Field Point Road looking northeast to Second Congregational Church:

 

A closer view reveals a cemetery in what seems to be the correct spot and, of course, I have found no mention of any other cemetery being located near the Bush cemetery:

 

The photograph is circa 1897, but if the cemetery was moved in 1894, that photo must be anachronistic.

 

According to an email received from a requestor in 2020, Dr. C. Boetsch [the creator of several Bush Family records on “findagrave.com”], the cemetery can be approximately located using coordinates “41.020474, -73.631767” based on an 1867 map and newspaper articles by Frederick Hubbard from 3/17 and 5/19 1894:

 

“Located on the east side of Field Point Road north of Horseneck Lane, the site is now covered by the

tracks of Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line.

 

“The burial ground was situated about 400 feet northwest of Bush's gristmill (built between 1716 and 1719)

and about 400 feet west of the Justus Bush farmhouse at Horseneck (built before 1760 and demolished

about 1869). Bush's gristmill was positioned on the north bank of Horseneck Brook near Horseneck

Harbor (which was later called Bush's Harbor and is presently known as Greenwich Harbor).

 

“An estimated seventy-five or more burials were described when the cemetery was dismantled in 1894. A

few identified and many unidentified remains were removed to Section B of Putnam Cemetery that same

year. Other unmarked burials may remain in place.”

 

·         Dr. C. Boetsch

·         https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2714857/bush-family-burial-ground

 

1867 Map

 

 

2023 – Red Label indicates coordinates “41.020474, -73.631767”

 

 

The other geographical descriptions of the cemetery do not provide an exact location:

 

·         “private cemetery on the Dougan property, near the Field Point Road”

·         “cemetery directly west of the Mansion House”

·         “the present freight yards of the New Haven stand where once was the cemetery”

·         “the vault and the cemetery back of the Mansion House”

 

1890 Miller Robbins Map

 

 

Curiously, in 1893, the Borough of Greenwich Map clearly shows the other downtown cemeteries, shaded in green:

 

 

Map showing the eventual re-tracking of the railroad. The original tracks ran along the Old Field Point Road and then continued along the southern properties of Woodland Drive, which eventually was named Railroad Avenue.