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I drove to Cornwall, Connecticut in mid-October of this year. My purpose was to find gravestones of my relatives on my paternal grandmother’s family tree. If you have joined ancestry.com or use findagrave.com, then perhaps you too have fallen down the rabbit hole that is researching your family roots. As I was poking around ancestry.com which is tied to the findagrave.com website, I started to realize that many of my ancestors were buried in the same cemetery or at least in the same region of Cornwall, Connecticut. What makes this so remarkable is how many generations and family lines are buried in Cornwall.

Myself in the Cornwall Hallow Cemetery in front of Major General John Sedgwick and my 3rd Great Grandparents and
4th Great Grandparents graves.

Here are my 5 discoveries in Cornwall:

Cornwall is tiny. I expected the town to be at least 20,000 folks. Imagine my surprise when driving through the Village of Cornwall, there wasn’t even a market or gas station. Outside of a church, a historical society and library,there isn’t much else. In fact, the most recent census has the population at 1,567. I can’t imagine how my forefathers all migrated to marry and prosper in this small town that was established in 1740 (well before the revolution). To go to a restaurant or grocery store I had to drive at least 25 minutes into the Berkshires.

Cornwall has 5 communities. There is Cornwall, Cornwall Bridge, Cornwall Hollow, East Cornwall and West Cornwall. There are some potters and artisans and a restaurant or two in some of these communities but I ended up driving to Sharon, Falls Village or Canaan to find “civilization”. There is a famous covered bridge in Cornwall which you would assume to find in Cornwall Bridge. There is a bridge in Cornwall Bridge over the Housatonic River but it’s not the covered bridge (crazy right?). The covered bridge which dates from 1864 and is a single lane bridge also goes over the Housatonic but is actually in West Cornwall. The confusion over Cornwall Bridge and the West Cornwall Covered Bridge had me quite confused for the first few days in Cornwall.

Cornwall has parts of the Appalachian Trail. I was surprised by how hilly the terrain was in Cornwall and was surprised to see signs for the Appalachian Trail along the Housatonic River. Since Cornwall was initially and continues to be a farming community, it was surprising how hilly the region was as I’m used to the lowlands of North Carolina for farming. My friend, Susannah and I hiked part of the AT to Caleb Peak which was wonderful in the Fall and had a lovely view. I also hiked part of the AT along the Housatonic out of Falls Village. There is also ski resort called Mohawk Mountain. Perhaps it’s my impression that Connecticut is flat, has several large cities like Hartford and mostly beaches but there is mountain climbing in Cornwall.

Cornwall Hallow = Sedgwick. The very first cemetery I went to was the Cornwall Hallow Cemetery. I found 11 headstones of ancestors on my Sedgwick side of the family in this one cemetery. Here in this one cemetery were 4 generations of my grandparents from my 2nd Great Grandfather John Benjamin Sedgwick, 3rd Great Grandparents Philo and Eliza, 4th Great Grandparents Benjamin and Olive, 5th Great Grandparents John and Abigail and finally 6th Great Grandmother Anne Thompson Sedgwick. As I was searching for the oldest headstone which was Anne Sedgwick (1719-1793), a man pulled up in a truck and asked who I was looking for. It turns out this must have been a long-lost cousin because his mother was a Sedgwick and he knew exactly where the Sedgwick homestead was which was about a half mile from the cemetery. In addition, there was a memorial to my 3rd Great Uncle John Sedgwick who was killed in action at Spotsylvania during the Civil War and was the highest-ranking Union General to fall in action. The homestead he built, a short half mile away, he only spent 3 months while recuperating from wounds during the war. I find it amazing that 4 generations of a family prospered in the very small village which has no center but a road call Cornwall Hallow and not much else but the cemetery.

Cornwall is a connection point. My cousin Christie has photos of several houses from Cornwall in which my dad, his siblings and my grandmother lived or vacationed in over time. My 2nd Great Aunt Sadie lived here, my Great Uncle John Sedgwick Cooke and his wife Mary lived here. There are stories of the Rogers family which I am descended from 5 generations of Noah Rogers and Noah Rogers III through Noah Rogers V are all buried here in the Cornwall Cemetery and North Cornwall Cemetery. They referred to the family home as Noah’s Ark (which I think is adorable) and then there is the Clark and Northrop sides of the family who are also found buried here including my namesake Catharine Rebekah Clark Rogers and there is one road called Clark Hill Road. When they call something a “road” here there’s a good chance it’s single lane and gravel for up to ten miles. But my sturdy forebears all connect here in the far western side of Connecticut.

Here in this beautiful forested hilly country next to the mighty Housatonic River nestled in the Berkshires, 5 generations of my family found each other, established farms, grew families and whether they wandered off to other parts or stayed and kept the fires burning, they all returned here in the end to be close to family. In a letter from General John Sedgwick to his parents, Benjamin and Olive Sedgwick upon the death of his sister Olive Sedgwick Fuller, “I hope she is carried to our burying-ground. It is a great consolation to believe that wherever I may die, I shall be buried with my family.” I discovered that Cornwall will always be a revered place in my heart for its beauty, history and my ancestral roots.

As I write this, I’ve been in the United Kingdom and Ireland since late March, 2023. I’m sitting here on a couch next to a window with a view of the English Channel in Southsea, Great Britain. You may ask why I’m in a relatively small town on the English seaside when there are hundreds of other more compelling places to visit in Great Britain.

What has brought me here is the work my late father did some 30 years ago on my family surname of Noice. He painstakingly documented his findings using various pre-Google and pre-ancestry.com resources. This involved obtaining info from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as well as Census and library records to find out where the Noices came from. In his introduction to his book about the 11 generations of Noices he says that he was spurred to write the book to answer his daughter, Cathy’s question, “Where do we come from?” I’m mortified to report that I finally read the book from cover to cover about four months ago. I’ve dragged that book through at least five moves (even one cross country), and I finally prioritized reading it.

The road to Walberton

In reading the book, I was compelled to make a pilgrimage to Walberton, GB, where at least 4 generations of Noices made their home. In fact, getting to Walberton was the entire underlying reason for coming to the United Kingdom although the trip grew as I learned more about other off shoots of my family including Dunfermline, SC, Armagh NI, Tipperary, IR and Wallingford, GB. The one thing I have learned in my genealogical research is that the best records are found in Anglican Churches in England. Unfortunately for research, branches of my family were practicing non-Anglicans, who at some point fell out of favor such as Presbyterians in Scotland and, later, Northern Ireland and poor, famine-stricken Catholics, in the country side of Tipperary, Ireland. I found a lot of dead ends. But, at least I was there to find them!

The first Edward Noice Sr. and my 7th Great Grandfather moved from Abbotts Ann, Hampshire, England, and married Elizabeth Risbridger in 1705. She had three children, including my 6th Great Grandfather Edward Noice Jr. but died shortly later in Walberton, Sussex, England. My father was unable to trace back further than Edward Sr. but I have since found roots back to Hampshire England to 1596 and three generations of Richard Noyes. This lines up with the majority of the Noice (Noyes, Noyce) surname to be located in Hampshire England in the 1850’s.

Edward Noice Jr. was born in Walberton, married his wife, Mary Stubbs, there on May 4th, 1736 at St. Mary’s Church and their son, Edward Noice III, was baptized in the same church in 1737. Walberton was then home to Edward IV who was born there and baptized at St. Mary’s in 1771. Edward Noice V was born in Walberton in 1813 and he was the Noice who traveled to the United States with his wife Elizabeth. She gave birth to Edward Harrington Noice in 1839 in Princeton, NJ. Four generations of Noices and they all lived in the tiny village of Walberton, Sussex, England (population 2,174). I researched and found that St. Mary’s Church (founded in the 11th century) is still there. I had to go.

The reality of traveling to Walberton was a bit more difficult than I realized. I booked a flat in Southsea that had transit connections, places to visit, the ocean close by, convenient shopping and restaurants. Southsea had taxis, trains and buses. Walberton did not except for a daily bus from Arundel (the opposite direction). I found a train that took me to Barnham but I had no idea if I could walk (did it have safe walkways) from Barnham to St. Mary’s in Walberton although it was only 2 miles. I was dead set against renting a car as, even after three weeks of watching, walking and riding

A European Robin on one of the many graves at St. Mary’s Church in Walberton

left side of the road driving in the United Kingdom, I just didn’t have the guts to get behind the wheel of what would likely be a stick shift car and drive on the left-hand side. I really started to panic on Sunday when I couldn’t find Ubers in Barnham to take me to St. Mary’s. I delayed my trip to Monday, hoping a regular workday would produce more Uber drivers. It did not. I decided that Monday was the last day since I had ample time to walk. I also was able to map the trip on Google maps and it showed me that there was a sidewalk/walkway for what looked like the entire trip. Off I went on Monday at around 11 AM to catch the train to Barnham.

Arriving at the Barnham train station at about 11:30 and I was glad to see a taxi there but I just felt like that would be too short a ride and that I wouldn’t truly experience the walk to Walberton. I wanted my “boots on the ground”. I decided to walk. I have to say that I was glad to see several folks on bikes, moms with strollers and some joggers on my walk to Walberton. The walk itself was bucolic. I walked on a separate bike path through several fields full of sheep and wild flowers. Passersby were friendly and there wasn’t a single moment when I thought I was in danger of being run over by a car. The town of Walberton is lovely with several thatched roof homes , many of them having names like Dairy Lane Cottage and Chamomile Cottage. The main drag of Walberton is called The Street and the church is on Church Lane. I enjoyed the walk so much as it really felt like a pilgrimage to my ancestral home and a way to honor them

Myself in front of the St. Mary’s Church where 4 generations of Noices lived, baptized and married in the 18th and 19th century

St. Mary’s Church is surrounded by graves and headstones. My first inclination was to walk to find some gravestone with Noice on it. I realized this was probably foolhardy as most of the stones were unreadable. I probably searched about 70 percent of the stones that were in the older section of the cemetery but most of the grave markings that I could read were from the late 1800’s, so I’m not sure how long they have been burying folks there. I was able to enter the front section of the church but the main church’s doors were locked. It didn’t matter. I could feel my ancestors there. Here in this tiny village in southern England where 4 generations of Noices loved, lived and raised families. I made it there and left a piece of my father’s ashes there. He, too, has been brought home. My lesson in all of this is to seize the day, walk it if you can and lean into the unknown. I will always have that memory of a beautiful walk to Walberton and taking my father with me.