Elder Grey Meeting - Cemetery Association

The Brown Tradition Stopped at Fern

In 1857 there began a restoration effort at the Elder Grey Meeting House. Elder James Gray had died in 1854 and presumably there had been a lapse in upkeep. The account shows that the men of the neighborhood donated labor and materials and a few women donated cash.

John W Brown headstone On October 30, 1857, Nathaniel Brown was credited with ½ day’s work on the meeting house “by John - .25.” Apparently it was his son John, age 15, who did the actual labor. John enlisted with the 32nd Maine and was later killed in action at Petersburg,Virginia. He was buried within enclosed ground at Meade Station, but all bodies here were later disinterred and reburied at City Point National Cemetery, Hopewell City, Virginia.

Jason Brown (left), another son of Nathaniel’s, contributed $1 to the “Expense of Fencing the Burying Ground in 1875-1876.” $1, by the way, was the average donation of the time.

In 1927, Jason’s son Wilbur Brown, his wife Mildred and daughter Fern were on a long list of donors.

However, the interest the Brown family had in the Elder Grey Meeting House and Cemetery seems to have stopped with Fern. In 1994, Fern was invited to attend the annual Pilgrimage Service. Her reply: “I was taken to many Elder Grey services as a kid, and once I reached the age where I had some say, I did not attend. Dad always had so many people he knew and wanted to talk to, and Mama and I had to WAIT and WAIT for him.”

And there you have the point of our Pilgrimage Service, connecting with those with a long tradition of attendance - perhaps not a young girl’s cup of tea.