Saturday, March 3, 2018

Death of a Sunday Scholar

While indexing the Union Sunday School record book from the 1870s, I came across this draft of a resolution memorializing the late Clarence Spencer Albee.

2018-3-3. USUN1873A-156, 157
(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.



That these people, so sadly familiar with the loss of children, should mention that Clarence was taken by "death in one of its most terrible forms" really makes me wonder what happened to the poor boy.

One might expect a fair copy of this undated draft to appear in the Sunday School minutes, giving us a rough date for Clarence's death, but so far I have not been able to find it.

Naturally, I set about trying to find out where he is buried … and got nowhere. Neither the NWIGS books of Hobart Township and Ross Township cemetery readings, nor findagrave.com record him. I believe he died in 1878, since the pages immediately before and after this resolution record events in 1878. The death records on Ancestry.com do not go back that far. Nor was there any newspaper in Hobart then that survives today. A search on two historical-newspaper sites[1] doesn't turn up anything. I expect I shall have to start scrolling through various other local microfilm someday, when I have time.

Clarence was born circa 1866 (1870 Census) to Jesse B. Albee and his fourth wife, Caroline (Spencer) Carpenter. Among his wives, Jesse had several offspring. But their final resting places, like Clarence's, are a mystery to me — and so is Jesse's, which is surprising given how prominent a figure he was locally in the mid-19th century.

I shall have to post a bit more about the Albee family in the future.

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[1] Newspaperarchive.com and Newspapers.com.

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