aged 80 years
[New Haven's Center Church Crypt, the Puritan City of the Dead
In the basement of an old Congregational church on New Haven Green lies a small city of the dead. One hundred thirty seven gravestones still stand in the Center Church Crypt, built in 1813 over a portion of an old Puritan graveyard. They tell dozens of stories about the early inhabitants of New Haven.
Buried under the bricks are Benedict Arnold's first wife, Rutherford B. Hayes' grandmother, Cotton Mather's crazy cousin, a hated Loyalist and a man and a woman without whom Yale would not exist, at least as we know it. New Haven in 1813 had only about 5,800 residents, and the people interred in the crypt probably either knew each other or were related to someone else lying nearby.
Warham Mather, Cotton's cousin, was born in Northampton, Mass., in 1666. After graduating from Harvard he moved to New Haven, where he tried the ministry, medicine and the law. He failed at the first two but had some success as a lawyer. He died in 1745.
When the probate court reviewed his will, witnesses said he was mentally incompetent when he wrote it.
Jared Ingersoll, before people hated him, testified:
At this time I could not discern that Mr. Mather was affected by any pain of Body, but so prodigiously broke as to his Intellectuals, that I must confess I should have soon as thought of pulling a Dead man out of his grave & getting him to execute any Deed or other Instrument as he.
The court ordered the will changed to include "heirs of the whole blood only."
SOURCE- https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/new-havens-center-church-crypt-the-puritan-city-of-the-dead/
NOTE-Excerpted
Contributor: Kent Gebhard (47001358)]
[New Haven's Center Church Crypt, the Puritan City of the Dead
In the basement of an old Congregational church on New Haven Green lies a small city of the dead. One hundred thirty seven gravestones still stand in the Center Church Crypt, built in 1813 over a portion of an old Puritan graveyard. They tell dozens of stories about the early inhabitants of New Haven.
Buried under the bricks are Benedict Arnold's first wife, Rutherford B. Hayes' grandmother, Cotton Mather's crazy cousin, a hated Loyalist and a man and a woman without whom Yale would not exist, at least as we know it. New Haven in 1813 had only about 5,800 residents, and the people interred in the crypt probably either knew each other or were related to someone else lying nearby.
Warham Mather, Cotton's cousin, was born in Northampton, Mass., in 1666. After graduating from Harvard he moved to New Haven, where he tried the ministry, medicine and the law. He failed at the first two but had some success as a lawyer. He died in 1745.
When the probate court reviewed his will, witnesses said he was mentally incompetent when he wrote it.
Jared Ingersoll, before people hated him, testified:
At this time I could not discern that Mr. Mather was affected by any pain of Body, but so prodigiously broke as to his Intellectuals, that I must confess I should have soon as thought of pulling a Dead man out of his grave & getting him to execute any Deed or other Instrument as he.
The court ordered the will changed to include "heirs of the whole blood only."
SOURCE- https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/new-havens-center-church-crypt-the-puritan-city-of-the-dead/
NOTE-Excerpted
Contributor: Kent Gebhard (47001358)]
aged 80 years
[New Haven's Center Church Crypt, the Puritan City of the Dead
In the basement of an old Congregational church on New Haven Green lies a small city of the dead. One hundred thirty seven gravestones still stand in the Center Church Crypt, built in 1813 over a portion of an old Puritan graveyard. They tell dozens of stories about the early inhabitants of New Haven.
Buried under the bricks are Benedict Arnold's first wife, Rutherford B. Hayes' grandmother, Cotton Mather's crazy cousin, a hated Loyalist and a man and a woman without whom Yale would not exist, at least as we know it. New Haven in 1813 had only about 5,800 residents, and the people interred in the crypt probably either knew each other or were related to someone else lying nearby.
Warham Mather, Cotton's cousin, was born in Northampton, Mass., in 1666. After graduating from Harvard he moved to New Haven, where he tried the ministry, medicine and the law. He failed at the first two but had some success as a lawyer. He died in 1745.
When the probate court reviewed his will, witnesses said he was mentally incompetent when he wrote it.
Jared Ingersoll, before people hated him, testified:
At this time I could not discern that Mr. Mather was affected by any pain of Body, but so prodigiously broke as to his Intellectuals, that I must confess I should have soon as thought of pulling a Dead man out of his grave & getting him to execute any Deed or other Instrument as he.
The court ordered the will changed to include "heirs of the whole blood only."
SOURCE- https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/new-havens-center-church-crypt-the-puritan-city-of-the-dead/
NOTE-Excerpted
Contributor: Kent Gebhard (47001358)]
[New Haven's Center Church Crypt, the Puritan City of the Dead
In the basement of an old Congregational church on New Haven Green lies a small city of the dead. One hundred thirty seven gravestones still stand in the Center Church Crypt, built in 1813 over a portion of an old Puritan graveyard. They tell dozens of stories about the early inhabitants of New Haven.
Buried under the bricks are Benedict Arnold's first wife, Rutherford B. Hayes' grandmother, Cotton Mather's crazy cousin, a hated Loyalist and a man and a woman without whom Yale would not exist, at least as we know it. New Haven in 1813 had only about 5,800 residents, and the people interred in the crypt probably either knew each other or were related to someone else lying nearby.
Warham Mather, Cotton's cousin, was born in Northampton, Mass., in 1666. After graduating from Harvard he moved to New Haven, where he tried the ministry, medicine and the law. He failed at the first two but had some success as a lawyer. He died in 1745.
When the probate court reviewed his will, witnesses said he was mentally incompetent when he wrote it.
Jared Ingersoll, before people hated him, testified:
At this time I could not discern that Mr. Mather was affected by any pain of Body, but so prodigiously broke as to his Intellectuals, that I must confess I should have soon as thought of pulling a Dead man out of his grave & getting him to execute any Deed or other Instrument as he.
The court ordered the will changed to include "heirs of the whole blood only."
SOURCE- https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/new-havens-center-church-crypt-the-puritan-city-of-the-dead/
NOTE-Excerpted
Contributor: Kent Gebhard (47001358)]
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