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caption, page 1:
Homeward Bound
The gravestone of Mr. John Morse is going back to Pomfret. Displaying the stone are Becky Lamb, left, and Pomfret First Selectwoman Maureen Nicholson. More photos on page 4. Linda Lemmon photo.
captions, page 4:
Becky and Tony Lamb in front of the post where the gravestone stood, unnoticed.
Ready for a car ride home to Abington
Mr. Morse going ‘home’ to Abington
Headstone was miles away
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
ABINGTON — This is the story of a headstone that’s homeward bound centuries later — with the help of some spiritually sensitive women and Google.
Becky Lamb was hosting a “girls’ night” at her home on Tracy Road on the Putnam/Killingly line and two in attendance were sensitive to the spirit world. “I was going to spook” one of them, Lamb said, but it turned out the joke was on her. The two sensed that the craggy piece of stone leaning on the bird house post out front was something more.
It was a headstone.
Lamb said the stone was leaning against the post, upside down. She thought the pointy top, now at the bottom, was there to allow the stone was stay in the ground. She had not noticed the engraving on the backside. Lamb said the previous owner of the 1850 house, Patty and Ross Lutz, might have placed it there. She thought that the craggy surface of the backside probably appeared to be, in silhouette, a soldier, and Ross Lutz was in the military. So she never noticed it was upside down with engraving on the back — not until her “girls’ night” pals sensed what it really was.
Then the detective work began. Lamb said she discovered that Morse was from Abington and that his headstone was listed as “missing.”
It says:
“In Memory of
Mr. John Morse
who died Aug. 1796
Aged 35
A wit’s a feather and a chief a rod;
An honest man’s the noblest work of God”
The quote on the gravestone was written by Alexander Pope, an English poet, translator and satirist of the Enlightenment era in Great Britain. One meaning ascribed to the quote is: “It is good to be smart, and it is good to be a leader, but it is the best to be an honest person.
The quote is taken from Pope’s “An Essay on Man” Epistle IV: Of the Nature and State of Man, With Respect to Happiness.
Lamb told Pomfret First Selectwoman Maureen Nicholson about her find and that Mr. Morse needed to return home. “That was one of the most unusual phone calls I’ve gotten,” Nicholson said.
Oct. 27 Nicholson picked up the headstone and brought it back to Pomfret. Research will have to be done on where the stone belongs exactly. “We’ll put the stone and the bones back together,” Nicholson said.
Nicholson said the town’s Department of Public Works will do the reuniting. “I’m sure they’ve never been called on to do this,” she added.
For her part, Lamb is thrilled that Mr. Morse will return home. “I just want him to go back to his place. To be in peace and I’ll be peaceful, too.”
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