In Death Not Divided

I've written several times about Capt. William Hawkins Fulford. He settled the area that is now called North Miami Beach, Florida. It was originally called Fulford. He is a 2nd cousin, several times removed.


New York Herald Tuesday, July 5, 1870

The City of North Miami Beach has been doing research on him for a while to document his life since he was their founder. The President of their historical society sent me an email recently which prompted me to do some more research on him.

In the process I came across this death notice in the New York Herald dated July 5, 1870. It reports on the death and burial of two of his children. I didn't know about them because they were born and died between 1860 and 1870. The census which was done every 10 years is one of the few ways to document children in a family from that era.

Birdie and Bennie died on the same day, July 3, 1870, I assume from disease. I found a Columbia University web page that listed all the epidemics in New York during the 1800s but there wasn't any shown for 1870.

The newspaper says they were buried in Greenwich, Connecticut. It took a while to figure out which cemetery. Their mother Mary Lent Fulford's family was from Greenwich and her grandparents, John and Mary Sackett were buried in the Second Congregational Church Cemetery in Greenwich. There are many other of her family members buried there. The funeral was held in her mother Abigail Sackett Lent's house in New York. I am pretty sure if they took the children to Greenwich they would have buried them in the Sackett family plot at the Second Congregational Church.