Lee's stone was found soon after by Earle Tyler of Cornwall and his stepson, Jason Allen, propped against a highway department fencepost on Swaller Hill in Sharon. "Maybe it fell off a truck [as someone was transporting it]," Mr. Allen speculated this week. "Someone else could have propped it up against the fence and the next person to look at it was my stepfather. He took it home to see if we could find where it came from. If it did fall off a truck, it's a miracle it didn't break."
The little slate stone was of a size typical for children's graves in the 18th century, and, except for the unknown maker's characteristic style of the carving, which can be found in many cemeteries in the Northwest Corner, it seemed to offer few ready clues as to where it had come from. But a couple of weeks ago, Jason Allen's attention was again captured by the tombstone, and he spent a few hours online with Ancestry.com researching the family of John and Rhoda Ensign. He soon hit paydirt, discovering that John Ensign lived in Falls Village.
This led him to research records at the Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society, where he discovered the 1934 record of stones in the hilly cemetery that lists Rhoda, "wife of Capt. John Ensign," who died April 21, 1810; John, a Revolutionary war veteran, who died on his 76th birthday on March 26, 1821, and little Lee. A visit to the cemetery revealed the captain's grave, but only an unmarked space where Rhoda and Lee still lie. Mr. Allen speculates that both mother and son's graves may have been desecrated at the same time. Another family stone has been broken and may have been an additional target for the thieves.
Last Saturday, sure that he had properly identified the final resting place of the infant, he brought the stone back to Falls Village and relinquished it to the hands of the historical society until such time as it can be restored to its proper place. Grassy Hills Cemetery Association president Peter Lawson said he wanted to look into the issue further before deciding whether the stone belonged there.
Mr. Allen said that he wants to participate in the repatriation of the stone. Gary Heany of Cornwall Bridge Granite Co. will re-situate the stone when it goes back into the graveyard.
Unfortunately, the theft of the infant's-and perhaps of his mother's-stone is not an isolated circumstance. At about the same time the Ensign stone[s] were removed from Grassy Hill Cemetery, the curled-up statue of a shaggy dog that had rested faithfully on the grave of 19-year-old Eliza Peet for more than a century in Canaan's Mountain View Cemetery was stolen. Across the country, there have been many instances of historic statuary, wrought iron fences, gates and other funerary art being removed. Some of the metal is sold as scrap while unwitting or unscrupulous antiques dealers buy the grave markers and statuary.
Connecticut has laws governing both the act of vandalism and theft of funerary art and for its possession. Both are class D felonies and can result of fines of no less than $500. Connecticut General Statutes Section 19a-315a provides for the preservation of ancient burial places, in particular, stating that no grave marker shall be destroyed, injured or removed without written consultation with the appropriate probate court and the Connecticut Historical Commission. This provision also pertains to the proposed repair, rehabilitation and renovation of an ancient burial place.
Young Lee was descended from a distinguished family. His mother, Rhoda, was the daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Lee, the much-loved first pastor of the Salisbury Congregational Church, and his wife, Elizabeth Metcalf, who traced her lineage back to William Bradford, Mayflower passenger and second governor of Plymouth Colony in 1621.
John Ensign's father, also known as Capt. John Ensign, fought in both the French and Indian and the Revolutionary Wars. He operated a fulling mill on the banks of the Housatonic and was a deputy [representative] of the Connecticut General Assembly in 1776.