Sedgwick Pie - Stockbridge, MA
Posted by: neoc1
N 42° 17.122 W 073° 19.082
18T E 638674 N 4682830
The Sedgwick Pie is an unusual family burial plot in Stockbridge Cemetery, Stockbridge, MA
Waymark Code: WMW46C
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 07/08/2017
Views: 0
The Sedgwick Pie is a circular family plot 150' in diameter and separared for the rest of Stockbridge Cemetery by a row of bushes and trees. At the center of the plot is a circular stone platform with a 10' obelisk that marks the grave of the patriarch of the family Theodore Sedgwick. Next to him is a shorter marker with an urn on the top for the grave of the matriarch of the Sedgwick family Theodore Sedgwick's second wife Pamela Dwight Sedgwick.
In concentric circles around the graves of Theodore and Pamela Sedgwick are several generations of Sedgwick family graves including those of in-laws and servants. The graves are grouped by family and all are laid out with their feet facing the center of the circle. An interesting legend that this arrangement was established so that on the day of the resurrection all would arise and face only other members of the extended Sedgwick family.
The Sedgwick Pie contains the graves of several notable persons, including:
Theodore Sedgwick (1746–1813) - soldier, attorney, politician, and jurist
Elizabeth Freeman (a.k.a. Mum Bett) (c.1742–1829) - first black slave to file and win a freedom suit in Massachusetts
Catharine Sedgwick (1789–1867) - novelist
Francis James Child (1825–1896) - editor of the collection of English and Scottish ballads known as the Child Ballads
Henry Dwight Sedgwick (1861–1957) - lawyer and author
Ellery Sedgwick (1872–1960) - editor of the Atlantic Monthly
Brigadier General William R. Bond (1918–1970) - WWII and Korea veteran killed in combat in Vietnam