by Diane Brenner and Pat Kennedy
The inhabitants of Center Cemetery on Sam Hill Road usually keep to themselves, but on September 16, 2023, five resident spirits — John Watt (c. 1735–1809), Esther Brewster Starkweather (1757–1838), Dwight Stone (1817–1901), Mary A. Bryant Adams (1817–1889), and Janet Huntington Brewster Murrow (1910–1998) — shed their cloaks of invisibility to appear before their fellow townspeople of the flesh. The stirring testimony of that evening is recorded below.
JOHN WATT (c. 1735–1809)
Good evening, fellow citizens of Worthington. I’m John Watt. It says “Watts” on my gravestone here, but during my years as a prominent citizen of Worthington I was John Watt. My children were baptized as Watt but later changed their names to the more Anglicized “Watts.” The surname Watt comes from my Scottish ancestry, but I came to America from Ireland as a young boy, arriving in Boston in 1740.
In 1766 — two years before Worthington was incorporated — I moved here from Brookfield, in central Massachusetts, with my wife, Martha, who was born in Framingham. We had eleven children, and eight lived beyond childhood.
You’re standing on land that was part of my original purchase of lots. Later I bought another lot and built a house where there now seems to now be a “sugar shack” at Windy Hill Farm! It must sell maple syrup, as sugar is a rare commodity as expensive as gold!
I bought lot number 34 from Aaron Willard, one of the town’s original five proprietors. As you probably know, the land that became Worthington was sold by the Massachusetts Bay Colony to private investors, probably sight unseen. Then they sold smaller lots to individuals who actually wanted to settle here.
Willard and four other investors, including John Worthington, bought what was known as Plantation #3 for about 1,860 sterling pounds — $509,979 in today’s money. John Worthington was the man behind the plan. He selected the partners and put Willard in charge of the purchase. These men hired Nahum Eager to plot out and sell lots to individual settlers.
There were so few of us at the beginning of the settlement that most of us men took on jobs in our town government, which was part of the British Massachusetts Bay Colony. I was appointed to the town’s committee of correspondence, a bit like today’s selectboard. We communicated with towns throughout the colony while still under British rule.
We voiced our opposition to the oppressive policies of the King, and chose representatives to the Continental Congress, those patriots who met in Philadelphia and composed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. I also collected donations to further the war effort.
All men of any means did some farming along with their other jobs, as did my wife and I. You can see our beautiful view of the valley to the southeast, as we gradually cleared off most of the forest. We needed the wood for firewood, building, and sometimes for potash, which is made mostly from wood ashes. Some of us sold potash back to England, where the forests were more depleted. They used it to make soap and fertilizer.
In 1792 I bought a sawmill on the brook you now call Watts Stream, just to the north of what is now Sam Hill Road. We not only sawed and milled wood but also ran a fulling shop, where wool cloth was washed and stretched for finishing. Most cloth at that time was wool or linen, as cotton was expensive and had to be imported. The women of Worthington spent many hours weaving wool and linen.
Once the cotton gin was invented in 1793, the Southern states greatly increased cotton production with the help of millions of enslaved Africans. Then we could buy cotton cheaply. I guess that tells you how all the states were implicated in the terrible scourge of slavery! The raw cotton came north to our Massachusetts textile mills in the 1820s, and built up towns like Lawrence, Lowell, and Holyoke. But that was after my time.
In addition to farming and running a sawmill, I was granted the right to run a tavern from my home by the Court of Sessions in 1786. It was just up Sam Hill Road, a few rods from the first meeting house (you might call it a church), where there’s now a barn and a cow pasture.
Operating a tavern was busy and hard. Worthington became a stopping point between Northampton, Pittsfield, and Albany, and there were always travelers. We didn’t have much space, so strangers had to sleep together in a large upstairs room, sometimes in the same bed. But never fear, we kept them separated by a bundling board that ran down the middle of the bed!
I was also elected as tithing man, a position of importance in the church. My job was to preserve order during the service, enforce observance of the Sabbath, and collect the tithe or money that each parishioner owed the church. I had to make sure everyone attended services and refrained from unacceptable behavior like gambling, drinking spirits, and unnecessary working or traveling on the Sabbath. I can tell you that was a hard job!
I had a rod with a large knob on one end and a feather on the other. We had services at least twice per day on the Sabbath, and I sat in the back, on a high stool, so I could see who needed a tickle or a whack. The whacks were mostly for the boys, who were often unruly.
My town positions also included constable, treasurer, town clerk, assessor, and selectman. I was on a committee to “Reforme the School Districts,” and in 1795 I was appointed one of eleven hog reeves, whose job was to assess damages caused by stray pigs.
In 1786 I was appointed tax collector for the southern part of town. My salary was five pounds, five shillings, but I was liable for any uncollected tax! After the War of Independence many farmers couldn’t pay, so it was hard to collect. The town often had to raise money to pay taxes owed to the new American government on the townspeople’s behalf.
Many of these aggrieved farmers objected to the heavy taxation and lost their land through foreclosure. Some joined Shays’s Rebellion of 1786 to 1787, and Worthingtonians fought on both sides of that conflict. I was almost 50 years old, but in December 1786 I served as a soldier in a company of 28 men under Captain Jonathan Prentice in an action supporting the government against the insurrectionists.
Eventually I sold this spot to the town for a public burial ground. Before that, most souls were buried on their own land. But not everyone had the right to claim a patch of earth, even to put their bones to rest! So the town meeting bought this piece of land from me, and my family and descendants have been buried here ever since.
When I finally came to rest in this beautiful place, I was tired and glad to put down my burdens. Now you may want to go over to visit my neighbor, Esther Starkweather.
ESTHER BREWSTER STARKWEATHER (1757–1838)
How nice of you to visit me here in my peaceful spot next to my husband, Dr. Ezra Starkweather. My husband was a prominent physician, lawyer, and legislator, and I was a more humble member of our little town. But as you ladies know, the wife makes the husband’s life possible!
I was born in Preston, Connecticut, in 1757, to Deacon Jonathon Brewster and Zipporah Brewster. Many of the first English settlers in Worthington were from Preston, and they came as a group. For several years the residents of Preston and Worthington stayed in touch and often married each other. That’s why there are Brewsters, Leonards, Starkweathers, and many other families in both places.
I am descended from William Brewster, who arrived in North America on the Mayflower in 1620. He became leader of the Plymouth Colony and luckily survived that first winter in the New World, when half the community died. His son, Jonathan, settled in Connecticut, where my people have lived ever since. I was part of the eighth generation of Brewsters to live in the United States, and among the first to move here to the hills of Worthington.
I was twenty when I married my Preston neighbor, Ezra Starkweather, in 1777. He served in the Revolutionary War and studied medicine at Williams College. We moved to Worthington in 1784 to farm and care for the townspeople. We lived at the corner of the Old Post Road and Thayer Hill Road, where the Ulrich family has recently lived.
Though our town was small, we always had a healthy population of several hundred people, with over 1,300 citizens in 1810. The population must be much higher than that now!
You can imagine how busy I was with a very large house and such a busy husband. He not only practiced medicine but served as a selectman, town clerk, town treasurer, and justice of the peace. He was a state representative for six years, and a state senator for twelve years.
Ezra was also a deacon of the church. In fact he’s remembered by some for preventing a fight from breaking out amongst our brethren when the location of the new church was being decided. He’s also remembered for leaving $4,000 to the church when he died.
The Doctor was a well-known character who insisted on wearing knee britches and buckles on his shoes long after the other men in town had adopted long pants! We often had visitors, either patients or visiting dignitaries, and I only had one or two servants. So I was busy all day long and attended church most of the day on Sunday.
I had a very fortunate, happy life, except for one thing. The Lord did not bless us with children! This wasn’t so rare at that time, but it caused me sorrow not to see my babies grow up and marry.
I was surrounded by relatives though. My parents also moved to Worthington and lived at White Rock Farm, over on Fisk Road. My brothers and sisters and their children were also close by. Some of my husband’s family members also came up from Preston. And we became parents when Ezra’s brother James died in the Revolutionary War, and our nephew, Joseph Starkweather, came to live with us. He was a great comfort! Joseph studied medicine with my husband and married a local girl, Olive Leonard. They settled down to life in Worthington, and their five children were like my own grandchildren.
Ezra’s younger brother Robert also studied medicine with my husband and then moved to Chesterfield, where he practiced for several years. When Ezra died he left our house to Robert on the condition that he would care for me, as I was blind in my last years. I died two years later and came back to this beautiful place to join my husband.
On the Brewster side I have several relatives in this cemetery, including one you’ll soon meet! Her name is Janet Brewster Murrow and she’s the great-great-granddaughter of my brother, Captain Elisha Brewster. She’s waiting to greet you where she rests with those recently buried, only within the last hundred years or so!
But first you must speak to Dwight Stone, who always has something to say.
DWIGHT STONE (1817–1901)
Good afternoon, my friends.
Dwight Stone at your service. You might not know me, but you know my house — that grand one across from the library. They call it the “Jonathan Woodbridge House,” but really it was the Stone homestead for many years.
My beginnings here in Worthington were more modest. My mother, Lora Parish, was a native. Her father, Cyprian, came from Preston, Connecticut, and he appears on the first town census in 1790. My father, Captain John Stone Jr., moved here as a child in 1803 with his parents and grandparents. I was born in the beautiful spring of 1817, the middle child in a family of nine.
I was raised and schooled locally and, as you might have guessed, was smart as a whip. Like so many young men, both then and now, at the ripe age of 18 I looked around and saw how little opportunity there was hereabouts. Worthington was nice enough, but it wouldn’t do if you had any ambition.
It was 1837 and I went south to Savannah, Georgia, where things were hopping. My older sister Sophronia had married Gurdon Coit, a tanner from Norwich and Macon, Georgia. She joined her husband selling dry and leather goods in Buffalo, New York, as well as in Savannah.
The dry goods were partly made from the cotton they produced on a Coit plantation. The cotton business had become very profitable thanks to the cotton gin, the large amounts of available land, and all those slaves to work it. The demand had become enormous, especially in England, but here as well. It would have been foolish not to take advantage of it.
Turned out I didn’t like the heat. Luckily, two of my Stone uncles had moved to Columbus, Ohio — a bustling new city at the heart of the Western frontier. My older brother Alfred, known as A. P., had already joined them in their dry goods business and they invited me to join as well.
Within a decade of my arrival in 1839, A.P. and I each had thriving businesses next door to each other on Gurney Street, the most fashionable Columbus block. Columbus was the state capital and A.P. took an interest in politics. We regularly provided goods for the Ohio Statehouse and I was proud when he was elected to Congress in 1845.
A.P. was a Democrat but we were men with foresight. We were convinced of the evils and economic impracticality of slavery, and we recognized that a new party was needed to save the union. During the 1850s we became founding members of the Ohio Republican Party.
I would return to Worthington, not only to visit my kin, but also to woo my sweetheart, Olive Evans of Cummington. We were married in May 1841 and together had five children: Dwight Jr. and four daughters, Mary Olive Stone (who died at the age of two), Julia, Myra Fay, and Ellen.
In 1852, A.P. and I purchased Chauncey Rising’s fine house, known as the “Woodbridge House,” at Worthington Corners. It needed a lot of work, but we enjoyed the family connections and cooler summers and in what was fast becoming a resort town.
Life in Columbus was good even when the War of the Great Rebellion took over our lives. Imports of cotton from the South were limited and strongly regulated. We had wisely stocked up beforehand, and I became known around town for my sound business ability, vision, and strict integrity. I served on the church board and helped found the gas lighting consortium. I was proud to receive a contract from the state governor to produce 800 pairs of cotton drawers for the men in uniform, for which I was paid 87 cents apiece.
A.P. was even named to the position of state treasurer, but, sadly, he was caught illegally running the cotton blockade and smuggling cotton into the north. He was always a risk-taker and that ruined him, combined with the alcohol, gambling, and the early deaths of two of his sons. He ended up killing himself on their graves in 1866.
When the war was over, Columbus had lost its appeal. But for men like me, there were always new opportunities. Cotton was more important than ever, and plantations were selling for cheap. I bought one in Waterproof, Louisiana, near the Mississippi border, and moved my family to Brooklyn, New York, where I became a cotton broker. I was also a founder of the Cotton Exchange — one of the first trading exchanges that flourished in New York during what was later called the Gilded Age. Like others raised with a strong Protestant work ethic, and with the benefit of my established contacts and native intelligence, I became ever richer.
By 1876 I was 60 years old, and having worked my whole grown life I was ready to shift focus. Olive and I now divided our time between the Tensas Parish plantation in Louisiana, where I supervised many former slaves producing cotton and sugar, and Worthington, where we had time to relax a little. Sadly, my daughter Ellen died the next year, only aged 29. My family, especially Olive and Myra Fay, loved it here and became very involved in the betterment of the town, particularly the church and the library. Really, if us rich folks didn’t do it, who would?
When the church burned in 1887, I became head of the rebuilding committee and was instrumental in choosing the architect and its elegant design. Of course I contributed handsomely to the costs of rebuilding, but in truth it was a town effort, with the poorer folks giving what they could. Sadly, Olive died of consumption during that time.
The library was another matter. We ended up in quite a clash with our Rice neighbors, who lived diagonally across the street at the Corners. They wanted to build the library on the corner lot they owned facing their house. We proposed three other lots, and were willing to donate quite a bit to have it facing our house instead of theirs. In the end they won that battle, and the library faces the Rice’s. Can’t win ’em all.
I had a lingering cough for quite awhile — chronic bronchitis I was told, though perhaps I’d gotten Olive’s ailment. I succumbed on a June day in 1901. I was 84. Dwight Jr. was by now full-time owner of the Louisiana plantation. Julia stayed in Columbus with her husband, but Myra Fay remained here for another decade, finally selling the house to one of her cousins. It was no longer a Stone house after 1911, and fell on hard times. But that’s another story.
A lot of these folks you see around here, they never really lived in Worthington. Sure, they were born and raised here, but they got out of town as soon as they were able, given the lack of opportunity. I can’t say I’m that different, but unlike some I could name, I always kept up my connection with Worthington. I was born here, married a Worthington girl, summered here, died here, and am buried here. Should be enough to qualify as a native.
Oh, I see my friend Mary Adams over there has something to say.
MARY A. BRYANT ADAMS (1817–1889)
If I wasn’t a God-fearing woman, I’d ring curses on you, Dwight Stone. You and your kind profited from that war, leaving me and those like me bereft, shattered and lost. It is no comfort that my dear dead sons had warm underwear.
I just had to get that out.
My name is Mary Ann Bryant Adams, daughter of Captain Eli Bryant of Chesterfield and Susan Warren of Connecticut. They started having children before the ink was dry on their marriage certificate. I was born in 1817, the tenth of twelve: four boys and eight girls. Nine of us survived. I was the second Mary Ann, my sister having died at the age of four, long before I was born.
Both the Bryant and Warren families were early settlers, and by the time I was born our family was among Chesterfield’s wealthiest. A lot of good that did me. When my father died, my brothers received large parcels of land. My sisters and I received $50 each — around $1,000 today. I guess my father assumed our husbands would take care of us.
In 1838 I was 24, nearly a spinster, when I married John Adams of Worthington, a hardware merchant and farmer. Our first house was near the school, about a mile south of the Center on Huntington Road. Then John bought a 150-acre farm closer to town at the intersection of Radiker and Huntington. We mostly raised beef cattle and produced the wheat, corn, and barley we needed to feed both us and our animals.
After five years of hard work we were able to build a large, modern house in the new Gothic style, with batten siding and large bay windows. I especially appreciated that the kitchen and carriage houses were in separate wings at the back — much cooler and cleaner. People whispered that it was just too different, too modern, but I didn’t care. I thought it was beautiful.
The children came in rapid succession: Mary, my namesake, in 1839, John Chester in 1840, then William Wilberforce in 1842. A little later came Howard, Elisa and Lorna. All survived.
By 1850 we were quite prosperous, with the farm valued at $3,500 with 75 head of cattle. Life seemed good, especially after John became one of the selectmen and an important member of the church. But by 1860, with war threatening, prices had come down and our land was only worth $2,200. We sold off most of our cattle, but still had our 150 acres as well as a horse, two oxen, six milk cows, eleven head of cattle, and two pigs. My oldest, Mary, had become a high school teacher and helped out with money.
And then came the war! At first we were very excited, following the news every day and wondering who would volunteer to sign up — or pay someone else to go in their stead. Quite a few chose not to go. We cheered at news that our local lad, James Clay Rice, was earning renown for his bravery. We church ladies quickly organized to raise money and sew clothing for the brave fighting boys. I proudly still hold dear an article from the Springfield Union from December 12, 1861. Please allow me to read it to you:
Rollers, by the way, were rolls of much-needed bandages. But that’s from the papers. Real life was a bit less cheerful.
My son William was 19 in 1861, and a hotheaded lad. He caught the war fever and rushed off to join the closest regiment, which turned out to be in Albany. By October he was enlisted in the 61st New York Regiment. He seemed happy. But at the start of 1862 we received tidings of his death from typhoid in the Regimental Hospital in Alexandria, Virgina. We never even knew he was sick, and could bring him no comfort at a dark time.
John Chester was more serious about life, and he was attracted by the promise of adventuring out West. He moved to Peoria, Illinois, where he worked as a clerk. Not long after William’s death, John answered the call for volunteers, enlisting in the 86th Illinois Infantry in August of 1862. Smart lad, he was quickly promoted to quartermaster sargeant, in charge of providing his unit with rations, clothing and other supplies. John had great promise but he, too, died of fever in a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. My beautiful, blue-eyed boy! What a waste. But Willie and John were only two of the many young men who died of disease or wounds in that awful war.
My husband. John — who wasn’t what you’d call emotionally strong — became a recluse. Of course I had to take care of him, which took some doing. Church attendance was compulsory at the time, and we were formally thrown out for not attending. Talk about Christian mercy!
The church and town government were one intertwined unit at that time — half our taxes supported the church, and half went to the town. This really wasn’t fair, since lots of folks in town went to Baptist or Methodist or even Catholic churches. John went on a rampage, working hard to get the church “disestablished.” He didn’t get far, but at the end of the war, in 1865, the Massachusetts Court ordered that all established churches separate themselves from the town government. Wouldn’t you know, Worthington was one of the last towns to do so.
We never really recovered from our loss. John did reconcile with the church, and he stayed involved in town government, but less than ten years after the war he left me a widow. I moved in with my daughter Eliza Adams Randall and lived with her until my death.
Somehow I made it through another twenty years, but never happily. War is hell as I’ve heard some say. Janet Murrow over there can tell you more.
JANET HUNTINGTON BREWSTER MURROW (1910–1998)
Hello everyone, my name is Janet Murrow.
People associate me with my famous husband, the broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow. Perhaps you remember his TV program See It Now, the CBS documentary series that helped bring about the downfall of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954. Or his TV show Person to Person, where he interviewed famous people in their homes, like John and Jackie Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Margaret Mead, Duke Ellington and the Marx Brothers.
My story is less known but equally rich in experience. I was a writer, educator, radio broadcaster, relief worker during World War II in London, and later I helped run Mount Holyoke College’s art museum.
I’m not actually buried here, as I was cremated. This Murrow stone is a cenotaph, not a gravestone. And I was never a full-time Worthington resident. But I spent summers here throughout my life, and my Worthington roots run deep.
I was born and raised in Middletown, Connecticut, where my father became a successful auto dealer. We lived comfortably, and in high school I was head of the debating society and editor of the school magazine.
In 1933 I received my B.A. in economics and sociology from Mount Holyoke College, where as a student leader I met Edward, my future husband. I considered becoming an actress, and played several roles for a summer stock company. After college I moved back in with my parents in Middletown and taught freshman English and commercial law at the high school. Edward and I were married in 1935, and we settled in New York City while he launched his career at CBS.
During the Second World War, I reported for CBS radio on the British home front. (Edward and I would edit each other’s radio broadcasts.) I was among the very small number of American women who stayed in London throughout the war, except for one trip back to the States. I was often assigned “women’s angles” on the war, from food rationing and family separation to the dream of postwar nylons. I also broadcast for the BBC — at least until our only child, Charles Casey Murrow, was born in 1945 — and became good friends with Mrs. Churchill.
Before the US declared war on Germany, the “Bundles for Britain” program rounded up clothing and other materials in America for transport to Britain on ships that were vulnerable to torpedoes. I was chairman of that operation on the British side.
I also volunteered to help evacuate children in danger zones to the United States. After a couple years I resigned, because I didn’t like separating families by so much distance when safer havens existed within England.
I also served on the British-American Liaison Board, which eased relations between American GIs and British civilians. I gave a course on American history through the BBC’s schools programme, and lectured on American life for civil defense units and the American Embassy. In 1946 I received the King’s Medal of Freedom for my contributions to international understanding.
After the war, of course, Edward’s career kept us in New York, but I visited Worthington frequently and saw my Brewster relatives. In 1953 Edward and I reported together on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. And on June 21, 1957, while he was reporting from Burma, I replaced him on Person to Person, interviewing a young model and a movie actor.
From 1949 to 1959 I was a trustee of Mount Holyoke College, but as a mother my career was largely on hold until 1970, when I joined Mount Holyoke’s Art Museum, becoming Executive Director of the Art Advisory Committee. I also served on the boards of National Public Radio and New York’s Henry Street Settlement.
When Edward died in 1965 I continued working on his legacy, placing many of his papers at the Edward R. Murrow Center of Public Diplomacy at Tufts University. Our other materials went to Mount Holyoke College, where you can look up the Edward R. and Janet Brewster Murrow Papers.
I come from a long line of Worthington Brewsters. My parents were Charles Huntington Brewster, born 1877 in Worthington, and Jennie Johnson Brewster, daughter of Swedish immigrants. My uncle, Judge Elisha H. Brewster, was the first president of the Worthington Historical Society when it formed in 1933.
My grandparents were Charles Kingman Brewster, born 1843 in Worthington, and Celina S. Baldwin. Charles was a selectman, state representative, and county commissioner of Hampshire County. He helped start the first public water system in Worthington Center, and wrote a history of Worthington covering the years 1853 to 1874.
His parents, my great-grandparents, were Elisha Huntington Brewster and Sophronia Kingman. Elisha was an abolitionist (born 1809, the same year as Lincoln) and also a selectman, Hampshire County commissioner, U.S. representative, and state senator elected in 1871.
His parents, my great-great grandparents, were Captain Elisha Brewster (1755-1833) and Sarah Huntington. Captain Brewster served the full duration of the Revolutionary War. Records show he sold four slaves in Connecticut in 1787 — Peleg Lott, his wife, and two children — around the time slavery was ending in Massachusetts. Sarah was the daughter of the Reverend Jonathan Huntington, Worthington’s first minister. That’s where my middle name comes from.
Captain Elisha’s parents, Jonathan and Zipporah (sometimes Zephora) Smith Brewster, came to Worthington in 1777 from Preston, Connecticut, with their son and one slave. They built a cabin and then a house at White Rock Farm, which still stands on Fisk Road. Jonathan was a deacon, and his town positions included selectman, moderator, clerk, treasurer, and representative to general court. I don’t know what happened to the slave.
Go back another seven generations and you get to William Brewster (1567-1644), who came over on the Mayflower and led the Plymouth Colony.
For all I’ve seen and done, nothing outshines all the wonderful summer months I spent in Worthington, and I can’t imagine a better place for my spirit’s eternal rest. On behalf of all the ghosts at Center Cemetery, thanks so much for visiting, and listening.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Pat Kennedy is retired from teaching English at Holyoke Community College, and is the commissioner for Center Cemetery. She came by her interest in cemetery care and preservation by way of genealogical research. The Worthington Cemetery Commission has undertaken the task of repairing and cleaning stones in our cemeteries, thanks to the generosity of the Rolland Cemetery Fund.
Diane Brenner has lived in Worthington with her spouse, Jan Roby, since 1994. She was a longtime member of the Worthington Historical Society board of directors, and continues to guide WHS in archiving and historical research. In her spare time she works at her day job as a book indexer: www.dianebrenner.com.
Great thanks to Jim Downey, Judy Babcock, Vance Richardson, Diane Brenner and Madeleine Cahill for serving as avatars of the deceased. They were photographed by Evan Spring.
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