After a day of driving in circles and not finding the ancestors we were searching for, we made our way to Connecticut. The morning of the 4th, we set out to the city of Stonington’s historic cemetery.
My family is rather interesting in that both my mother and my father are descended from Walter Palmer.
My mother’s side comes from his daughter, who married Thomas Minor. Her full brother, Jonah, is one of my father’s direct ancestors. That makes Walter Palmer both my 10th and 11th great-grandfather (and my parents tenth cousins once removed).
His original field stone marker is still in the cemetery.
His son-in-law Thomas’s (my 10th great-grandfather) original marker is there as well. By the way, I’ve read his diary that he kept from 1653 – 1684.
After we left the cemetery, we went to tour the historic Nathanial Palmer house, which was built in 1852. I’m not sure what the actual relationship is, but he is a cousin, also being a descendant of Walter Palmer. He gets to boast that he was the first American to find Antarctica.
We got to tour the house all the way up to the turret.
It was a beautiful view.
After that, we went down to the shore.
We toured the light house. Only the first floor is open to the public, but it is a nice little museum.
And it has the coat worn by John Minor in the War of 1812. Yes, this is another cousin of some sort (not sure how yet). HERE is an article that give more information on how there was an explosion that caused the rip in the coat and injured him. He even lost the vision in his eye because of it.
It was quite an interesting morning walking in the home place of so many of my ancestors.