The Outwin Children

This memorial to three young children is cut to resemble two small side-by-side headstones, but the inscription (especially the third name and the epitaph) runs across them like a single stone.

The headstone marks the graves of three children, two of whom died within two weeks of each other and one who followed them just a few months later.  They were originally buried in the Dutch Reformed section of the State Street Burying Grounds and moved here at an unknown date.

John Outwin, departed this life March 14, 1833, aged 2 years, 2 months and 21 days.

Alexander McDonald Outwin, departed this life 1st March 1833, aged 3 years, 10 months and 23 days

Margaret Outwin, departed this life August 26, 1833, aged 5 years, 11 months and 5 days.

Loved youth, how short on earth your stay
Death his fell dart has hurled,
But soon your spirits found their way
To yon celestial word.
While fond remembrance reads your stone
And heaves the deep felt sigh,
We'll learn to lean on Christ alone
And in his bosom die.

They were the children of John and Margaret Outwin.  John was listed in city directories as an accountant at 144 Washington Avenue. He is not listed in the burial records, but Margaret is.  She died at the age of 90 on September 11, 1882 There was at least one sibling who survived to adulthood (yet still predeceased his mother);  there is a William Outwin interred elsewhere in the same plot who died on January 26, 1880 at the age of forty-five.