Photo #21 Little Henry T. STEWART

Little Henry T. STEWART, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

 Photo # 21 Little Henry

Elm Grove Cemetery in Mystic, CT overlooks the water and you can see the Mystic Seaport from the section of the cemetery. Called a "garden cemetery', it is filled with flowering trees and bushes, and the gravestones are arranged in areas that have streets (with names) that you can drive around on. 

In the cemetery office, there is a large framed map on the wall that the architect designed. I have a small version of the map they gave me so that we wouldn't get lost. The gravestone plots are numbered but it is too hard to read them. The design of the cemetery is in the shape of an elm tree.

My Stewart-Denison grandparent's chose to be buried there instead of in the Stewart Family Cemetery in North Stonington probably because Eliza Fish Denison, wife of Dudley Wheeler Stewart, wanted to be buried with HER family.  But, before it came time for them to be buried, their little son, Henry died.

We used to plan geraniums on the graves on Memorial Day, and the adults planted one in front of Little Henry's headstone. "Poor Little Henry", they murmured. I really couldn't imagine a little baby buried there. In the family Bible, it simply says, "Little Henry at rest" and the date.

Henry Trueman Stewart, second son of Dudley Wheeler Stewart and Eliza Fish Dension was born on the 16th of September in 1863 in Stonington, CT. His big brother, my great grandfather, Charles, was four. After little Henry dies, my 2nd great grandparents have another child, a daughter in 1866.

On the back of this photo is a tax stamp which dates this photo by the photographer as 6 July 1864 and it says, in his mother's handwriting, 10 and 1/2 months. Little Henry died on  the 10th of December in 1864 in Norwich, CT. I do know that there is a hospital in Norwich so he may have died there. He was 1 year, 2 months and 24 days old.

I have a single earring in the shape of an acorn with what might be little Henry's hair in it. My mother lost one of the earrings and she told me she was heartbroken. Little Henry lives on in our memory because of this precious photo.

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