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:
- Imitation Rosewood Casket: $22.00
- Outside Box: 3.00
- Cashmere Robe 4.00
- Preserving body in ice: 5.00 (it was midsummer)
- Attending funeral 4.00
Total: $38.00
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.
