Friday, June 5, 2015

Catharine Ann Van Benthuysen


This stone on the North Ridge is beautifully detailed;  elegant and Gothic, it features a rose and a tulip on either side of a niche framing a worn figure of an angel.

It marks the grave of a Catharine Van Benthuysen who died on August 23, 1854.  It does not give her age or date of birth.  The lower part of the stone might contain additional information or an epitaph, but the slab has broken off its base and the bottom portion is obscured now.  The burial records on file indicate she was twenty-three at the time of her death.

Census records for 1850 show a sixteen-year old Catharine A. Van Benthuysen, the daughter of Watervliet farmer Volkert Van Benthuysen and his wife, Dorcas.  Catharine's parents are also buried in the plot, as well as Ida, a two-year old sister who died just a month after Catharine.


No comments:

Post a Comment