Masonic Compass

I recently started looking to cemeteries to help me in my family research.  This has brought me huge success.  The day is here when you don't have to travel around the country looking for the cemetery, and then wander around a cemetery for hours on end with disapointment and frustration that you were not able to locate your ancestor.  

I have found a couple of websites where you can travel to virtual cemeteries.  The premise is an all volunteer system.  You volunteer to go to cemeteries near your home and take photos, and someone else does the same for you. Just this past holiday I received my first request to find a family plot here in Texas near my home.  I was given the GPS coordinates of Longitude and Latitude and I headed out on my quest. 

I found the family plot, and if you know me, you know that I had to talk to someone and ask questions for sure, right? Well the family cemetery plot was on private land, on a huge cattle ranch on the north shore of Lake Travis.  Back in the mid - 1800's the area was known as Travis Peak.  The area is still mostly rolling hills covered in Cedar and Oak trees.  Very beautiful place that will probably in my life time be swallowed up by the growth of the city of Austin.  Well, me having a jeep, I just drove right on in to the ranch.  I met the current resident of the ranch and we talked briefly about the history of the area, and the original family, it was great!  I explained I was there to photograph the family cemetery plot, so he showed be the way, and he went on about his day.

The cemetery was on a bluff over looking a beautiful valley with a creek in the bottom.  It was enclosed within a rusty old white painted iron fence that had since been knocked over by the 150 plus years of cattle.  Directly in the center of the plot and surrounded by a few family headstones was a newer granite monument.  On the top of the monument for this family was the Masonic compass. 

I have seen this compass symbol everywhere in my family research, and have to say that I am very ignorant regarding this organization, which peaks my interest all the more.  My knowledge I guess is limited to the book and movie by the same name, The Da Vinci Code, and I had a friend in college who is a Mason.  

Since many of my ancestors were Masons in Quebec Canada and were from the Golden Rule Lodge in Vermont at Owls Head, which is in Newport.  I decided I need to began my inquiry into this secret society.  I thought I should start small first, and find out why the Masonic Compass appears on the headstones. 

I first discover that like any organization, people branch off.  Besides Masons, I also find there are Freemasons, and The Scottish Rite.  I decided this would be too much work, I do not want to write a PHD thesis here. The one thing I find they all have in common is the Masonic Compass.

One of the most common symbols of The Masonic Temple, Freemasonry, and the Scottish Rite is the symbol of the crossed compass and set-square. The compass and square are architect's tools, and symbolize God as the architect of the universe, among other things.

As measuring instruments, the tools represent judgment and discernment.

The compass, which is used to draw circles, represents the realm of the spiritual- eternity. It is symbolic of the defining and limiting principle, and also of infinite boundaries.

The angle measures the square, the symbol of earth and the realm of the material. The square represents fairness, balance, and firmness, which is reflected in phrases such as "on the square" and "squared away." Something that is squared is something that is stable, a foundation for building upon.

 Together, the compass and square represent the convergence of matter and spirit, and the convergence of earthly and spiritual responsibilities. The two symbols together form a hexagram, forming a union of the earth with the heavens, matter and mind. 

What I take away from this, is the union between life, and death, and the joining of the two through the cycle of life on earth with that in the heavens.  Seems very appropriate now to me.

Howie Family Cemetery

Vieux Cimetiere de Pike River

The year was 1976, I was just a young boy when I traveled with my mother and father in a 1968 Blue Datsun pickup truck with a camper shell on the bed. We drove across country heading out from Albuquerque New Mexico in search of our family history and to see the United States.  We made many stops along the 3,000 mile journey that summer, and had great adventure.  When we arrived in Vermont we first went to the home where my father lived as a young boy before his mother died.  The home was built by his father and held great memories for my father, as well as historical interest.  From there we tried to locate family members, and a cemetery with no luck, we left without ever finding where his parents, my grand parents or any other family were buried or still living.  Now lets fast forward 34 years, to 2011.  You and I can now travel the internet highway of the worldwide web, and thanks to volunteers like David J. Ellis, with a click of our mouse we are able to visit these far away cemeteries.  The photos and all the information I post here today, I want to thank and give credit to David J. Ellis.  The information has been of great value in my family research.   I had been contacting Churches in the area with no luck, then I found on the website www.internment.net the following text in italics which explains the story why.

This cemetery is located in a field 300 meters north of the village store. Access is from Ch. des Rivières.

The earliest burial was in 1828. The cemetery was originally a multi-denominational Protestant cemetery but was associated with the Methodist Church building, which was erected nearby in 1858 and catered to all denominations. That building, but not the cemetery, was sold in 1915 and subsequently dismantled. The cemetery was often referred to in the village as the “Protestant Cemetery” or the “Methodist Cemetery”. The first official name was the “Pike River Burying Ground” and later the “Pike River Protestant Cemetery”. It has also been referred to as the “Cemetery on the Hill”, the “Cemetery in the Field”, or simply the “Old Cemetery” but, contrary to occasional claims, not as the “Loyalist Cemetery”.
Due to township boundary changes, the cemetery has at different times been part of the Township of Stanbridge, of the Seigniory of Noyan, of the municipalities of Notre Dame des Anges and of Saint-Sebastien. A significant change of boundaries between the counties of Iberville and of Missisquoi in 1912 also affected the cemetery. The current ownership was established on the 5th of July 1932 by virtue of the “Loi des Compagnies de Cimetières”, or Bill C17. A more detailed history is held by Compagnie du Vieux Cimetière de Pike River.

This listing was compiled by M. Jef Asnong, a member of the Cemetery Company, by surveying the markers. To supplement damaged or missing markers, it incorporates information from partial listings made in 1927 by M. Pierre A. Saint-Pierre and 1960 by Alfred Rousseau. Cross verification against the 1960 listing was performed by David Ellis, a member of the Cemetery Company, and discrepancies found were verified against the actual markers.
Markers are numbered sequentially across all rows from the South West corner to the North West corner, then continuing in the next row. Rows are numbered from West to East. Different faces on the same monument are signified by the letters "A", "B" etc. and different individuals on the same face by ".1", ".2" etc. Some individuals appear more than once, often on a monument and also on an individual marker. When an individual appears on two markers, the information on both markers is not always consistent.

This listing is a joint effort of Jef Asnong and myself in the summer of 2005. The cemetery is in good condition, although in need of some fence work.

- David J. Ellis

Again, Thank you to Mr. David J. Ellis and M. Jef Asnong.

There are many of our ancestors in their final resting place here at the Pike River Cemetery.  One epitaph that I found very touching was for Mary Jane Howie (1860), the daughter of Thomas Howie (1831 - 1902) and his wife, Jane Frances McMillan (1840 - 1915).  Inscription:
Gone is little Mary Jane - From her mother and me - An angel loved her when she smiled - She was Mary Jane, our only child.

Click on the top blue link or Howie Family Cemetery to go to Find A Grave.

Or click here for a list of those buried here.

HIBBARD FAMILY

On the Howie and Rider branches I have come to a wall and currently am unable to research back any further.  The New England Historical Genealogical Society has a 100 year gap between my GGGr-granndfather Seth Bartlett Rider of Haverhill New Hampshire and Samuel Rider.  I call it a wall, as many researchers on Ancestry.com were placing a Seth Rider of Massachusetts in their tree, which I knew was incorrect.  To prove this I had to start researching other branches and the history of Haverhill New Hampshire.

What I have found is my sixth generation 4th Great Grand Father Thomas Hibbard (1756 - 1800) born in England.  Helen Desdemonia Rider was my 2nd Great Grand Mother, and her father was Ezra Bartlett Rider.  Ezra's mother was Mary Hibbard (1774 - 1860), and she was the daughter of Thomas Hibbard.

I have purchased three books on the Hibbard family and have downloaded from google books some history books on the area.  As I get more information I may update this post, however here is what I have so far.

The scene of the surrender of the British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga, on October 17, 1777, was a turning point in the American Revolutionary War

Thomas Hibbard was born in England and came first to Haverhill New Hampshire and settled in Newbury Vermont between 1770 and the American Revolutionary War.  He fell in love with  and married Lucy Sylvester on February 22, 1772.  She was the daughter of Levi Sylvester, and she was born in 1751.  Their first born was Mary Hibbard born in 1774, she later becomes Seth Bartlett Rider's second wife from whom we descend. Thomas and Lucy had seven children in all. In June of 1775 Thomas was appointed adjutant in Colonel Bedel's regiment and accompanied it through the march to Canada.  He was able to return to his family in January 1776.  In that same month he was appointed adjutant in another regiment commanded by Colonel Timothy Bedel, which went back to Canada and they were gone for more than one year.  In the summer of 1777 we find him present at the surrender of British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York on October 17, 1777. Burgoyne’s surrender followed battles with American General Horatio Gates near Saratoga on September 19 and October 7, 1777.   Later Thomas was adjutant of a regiment which protected the northern frontier of New Hampshire in an area of disputed land Grants between Fort Number 4 and Crown Point until the end of the war.  In all he saw about three and a half years of service.  Thomas Hibbard then became a school master and minute, and it is said that he had the most beautiful hand in writing.  A minute was a person who wrote land deeds, so many such documents of the era would have been written in Thomas Hibbards hand.   As a school master Thomas taught in Newbury, Haverhill and in Bath, and in 1800 he went to Cambridge, New York, to open an academy, where he died suddenly on July 01, 1800.   After his untimely death, Lucy (Sylvester) Hibbard married Mark Sanborn of Bath on January 10, 1801.  They stayed married until his death on July 26, 1821.  She never married again and she lived until 1860 at the age of 86 years.