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A Burial
Back in 1879
by Doris Sherrow, August 99
John Concklin, an elderly bachelor
living on Indian
Hill Avenue, died of dysentery on July 30, 1879. He had been sick for
five days with this rather common summer ailment, and the paper
mentioned "much sickness" around Portland and Middletown. In
his probate papers are bills from his August 1st interment by
the undertaker and coffin maker W.G. Spencer. Not only are these
bills gracefully designed and handwritten, they offer a window into the
funeral industry of the later 19th century.
Concklin had been one of several children of Dr.
Isaac Concklin. He was a carpenter, as were two of his brothers. The
houses at 57 and 67 Indian Hill Avenue (the latter gone) were built in
the late 1840s by his brothers. John inherited his grandfather's house,
which formerly stood at 51 Indian Hill Avenue (known to older residents
as the Hanford house, it was dismantled around 1979, and
reassembled in Ohio).
Wellington G. Spencer was the local mortician. He
conducted his business from a long gable-to-street commercial building
next to and south of the present day Café 66. This
building is pictured in the January, 1992 Portland Historical Society
calendar. It is white with a small, fancy ell to the south under the
sign of "Undertaker." This building, still in use as a funeral
parlor, burned in 1936 under the ownership of Spencer's son-in-law, Arthur
Emmons, and was then rebuilt in its present form. Café 66 survived
that fire only because it was stucco.
Spencer's flowery letterhead on the bill reads: "W.G.
Spencer, Undertaker, and Manufacturer of Caskets and Coffins. Dealer in
House Furnishing Goods, Paints, Varnishes, Glass, &c., &c.
Terms." An outlined box to the left offers: "Merino
shrouds, caps, &c., On hand and made to order. Carriages and Hearse
Furnished." Spencer billed the estate as follows:
A second bill to the estate came from Laverty
& Sarsfield, "Hack, Livery, and Feed Stable."
This was the business carried on by James Laverty at 188 Main
Street in addition to his thriving saloon business. Five years later a
disastrous fire destroyed his saloon. Laverty scrambled to rebuild this
moneymaker, producing the building we know today as Portland
Restaurant.
The August 1st rental of "2 Hacks
Funeral" from Laverty and Sarsfield cost the estate $8.00.
One of those "hacks" would have been the hearse. The type of
hearse used by Spencer is pictured in the October, 1996 Portland
Historical Society calendar. It is framed in shining black wood with
glass sides allowing a view of the interior (a sort of sinister version
of Cinderella's carriage). The undertaker and his assistant sit atop the
wagon, grim and black-suited, with a pair of white horses yoked to their
rig. The rules drawn up by the Center Cemetery Association
in 1897 state that an assistant must remain in the wagon seat to control
the horses during the funeral. One wonders what incident necessitated
such a clear statement of policy!
A third bill rests with the probate papers: John
Strickland charged Conklin's estate $4.00 "for opening
grave" on that 1st of August. Strickland was a 43 year
old farmer who lived near the cemetery. Digging a 6 foot deep, 6 foot
long hole in the August sun must not have been pleasant.
The fourth and fifth bills in the estate supplied
Concklin's grave marker. In May, 1880, George A. Shubert in New
Haven, charged the estate $20.00 "To one head ston [sic] as agread
[sic]." And the Boston and New York Air Line Railroad Company
issued its narrow receipt: "For transportation of Merchandise from
NH: 1 Grave Stone 7.86 [pounds?] $ .94" The ninety-four cents was
paid by John's youngest brother George, who picked up the stone from the
train station on Marlborough Street.
John Concklin's gravestone, a simple, four foot
rectangle of brownstone, was placed in Center Cemetery beside his
parents' stones, and near his Sage relatives.
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