Old stones

Dutcher’s Bridge Burying Ground  in the Weatogue section of Salisbury accepted  “residents” from 1676 to 1882. 

I visited on a rainy afternoon to see how the folks were doing. Their complaints were unvoiced but apparent: pine branches were everywhere, droppage from the snowstorm we had back at Thanksgiving. I expect the debris will eventually be removed, but until then, the boughs brought a fresh aroma to the gray stones.

A less easily repaired issue at this and many of our cemeteries is stone deterioration. Inscriptions are increasingly unreadable. One reason families paid to have names and dates etched in presumably indestructible stone was to perpetuate their memories. Our harsh winters and acid rain have taken a toll.

A sign on the cemetery fence informs visitors that an early resident, Ruluff Dutcher, purchased land here in 1720. There apparently were burials here before the town acquired the lot in 1802. Dutcher sold the land for $1 and retained grazing rights for sheep and cattle.

My research told me Dutcher (notice the similarity of his first name to Roeliff Jansen of the Copake and Hillsdale, N.Y., area) was one of three Dutchers, or rather, Dutchmen, to come here from Livingston Manor. 

Dutcher farmed. He served with the colonial militia. And he made a pence or two paddling passengers across the Housatonic River in a “canoe ferry,”  according to a WPA history.  I assume he took only humans across the river; the image of a horse standing in the canoe is amusing.

The endeavor ended when a wooden bridge was built here in 1760. Dutcher died in 1802, his burial plot already set aside.

I attempted to read several inscriptions in the graveyard but couldn’t.  Ollive Pew’s was legible; she died in 1805 at age 64. Other sources advise she was the wife of John Russell, who survived until his death in 1843 at age 83.

Salisbury Association in 1913 compiled and published a list of inscriptions. Through the process of elimination, one might be able to figure out the poor soul whose small stone is not only now lacking in any name, but is so eaten into as if a giant worm had feasted. 

The moral of this story is, we can’t count on stones to prove our existence forever; we need to make ourselves known otherwise during our lifetimes, preferably through good deeds. 

The writer is an associate editor of this newspaper.