The Daughters of John and Sarah Prentice

Last week's walk through the North Ridge on the way to Dianna Mingo's grave yielded quite a few wonderful surprises, especially in areas explored many times before.

Marble headstones with sleeping infants are fairly common, but usually they are quite tiny with the reclining figures being no large than small dolls.  So, this peaceful child was almost startling as it is nearly life-sized.  Beside it, a small headstone depicts a young child kneeling.

Located just beyond the fenced Hallenbeek lot where the hillside slopes down towards the Kromme Kill ravine and an old path called Dell Side Avenue, the lot features two poignant headstones marking the graves of Sarah and Jane Ann Prentice.

Sarah died April 13, 1860.  She was just twenty-nine days old.  Her monument is the reclining infant.  Beautifully detailed, it shows the sleeping child dressed in a thin nightdress that is almost invisible due to erosion of the stone.  Beneath her blanket, there is a cushion with tassels.  One end of the headstone reads "Gone Home."

Jane Ann died on September 5, 1857 at the age of one year, four months, and seven days.  Her headstone shows a child kneeling amid what appear to be cushions.  Her face is eroded, but one tiny hand points toward Heaven.  The top of the stone is decorated with carved flowers.

 As with many early burial records, there is no cause of death given on their index cards. 

John F. Prentice, identified in census records as a schoolteacher, died only a few years after his little girls.  He passed away on April 30, 1862.  He was only thirty-two.  His widow, Sarah Lansing Prentice, survived him for many years.  She died of asthma on November 10, 1904 at the age of seventy-six.  Both John and Sarah are buried in the same lot as their children, but their gray granite headstone has toppled from its base.

Both Sarah and Jane Ann's gravestones are signed by their maker, Tuckerman & McClelland located on Lydius Street (now Madison Avenue)  Below is an advertisement for the Marble Works from Albany Argus in 1860.

Fannie and Ella Fitch

These days, the word "pets" generally refers to domestic animals such as cats and dogs and one doesn't usually hear the word applied to children, except in not-so-complimentary instances such as "teacher's pet." So, this little marble gravestone in memory of "Our Pets" on the high eastern edge of the Middle Ridge (not far from the graves of Governor William Marcy and painter Ezra Ames) is a poignant, but pretty surprise.

Decorated with carved roses and other embellishments, this touching tribute to Fannie and Ella includes a dainty marble likeness of the girls, perhaps copied from a photograph or portrait. Though the elements have darkened the white marble to gray, the features of the children have suffered less erosion that many monuments here.

The back of the stone is somewhat more worn and it is very difficult to read, but it seems both girls died in 1863 and that they were the daughters of Dennis M. Fitch.  Census records from 1850 show that jeweler Dennis Fitch and his wife, Eliza, resided in Troy.  In addition to these two girls, they had three sons.  By the late 1860s, he seems to have relocated his silversmith and jewelry business to New York City.  He is, however, buried here in the same lot. 

There is an epitaph on the reverse of the stone, too, but only the last lines are legible:  And let them hereforth be Messengers of love between our human hearts and Thee.

Thomas and Elizabeth Beckett

The western edge of the North Ridge contains many graves privately transferred to the Rural Cemetery from the State Burying Grounds prior to the closure and mass removal of graves by the Albany Common Council in the late 1860s (see also the David Fonda stone).

This white marble headstone marks the relocated graves of Thomas and Elizabeth Beckett which were moved here from the Dutch Reformed Church's lot at the old Burying Grounds.

Elizabeth Beckett died in  1854 at the age of forty.  Thomas died in 1862 at the age of forty-eight.  According to the city directory, he was a grocer with an establishment on at the corner of Lumber Street (now Livingston Avenue) and Lark Street.  Their home was a few blocks away at 104 Clinton Avenue.

The Beckett headstone is a simple rectangle of white marble which features some of the loveliest carved roses in the Cemetery.  The flowers and leaves are very details with two open blooms and one rose hip berry.  The style is not too unlike the roses carved on the broken stone of Elizabeth Ann in the nearby Church Grounds and may even be the work of the same stone-cutter.

Details, Details

I've paused to look at this marble gravestone many times over the past couple of years, but I've never really stopped for a close look.  And this richly detailed stone is worth a closer look.

The stone marks the grave of one David Fonda who died in 1805 and was first buried in the Dutch Reformed section of the old State Street Burying Grounds.  Since he was buried in a private plot and not the Church Grounds, he may have been privately transferred by family from the Burying Grounds before the City's inventory mass transfer of remains in 1868. A biography of David can be found here.

The stone itself is full of fantastic details.  By the early 1800s, the winged skull soul effigies had given way to cherub heads as a popular motif for gravestones and these cherubs were quickly giving way to classical urns and weeping willows.  This wonderful stone includes both - a smiling, tilted cherubic face framed by wings above a richly decorated urn.  But the busy details don't end there.  Two smaller cherubs rest agains the top of the oval tablet, flowers and foliage flank the larger round-cheeked cherub, and swags of carved fabric drape from the urn to the finials of the stone.

The inscription is somewhat worn, but largely still legible:

In Memory of David Fonda

who departed this life 

August 3rd A.D. 1805

aged 48 years, 6 months, 

and 22 days.

This stone is located on the North Ridge in a section filled with older stones, most of which were brought from other burial grounds after the Rural Cemetery opened in 1844.