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. 

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.