The Waltons of Preston, Norwich, and Griswold, Connecticut have been described by some as obscure and unobtrusive. Like many of the settlers of 17th century Connecticut, they were hard-working subsistence farmers who eked out a back-breaking and meager existence from the rocky Connecticut soil.  They had many children for whom they did their best to provide, they lived extremely difficult lives by today’s standards, and they came from a tradition where faith and hard work were valued, and formal education was often an extravagance for which they had limited resources. Despite this, the firstborn son of the Walton patriarch managed to go to Yale College in 1716.

Although I never met these ancestors of mine, I find it hard not to be somewhat offended by a few self-superior writers of the early 20th century who described the Waltons as “poor and illiterate” … living in “respective mediocrity”  (Phillips, 1918), who “continued to live in obscurity, later distinguished themselves only as a prolific crowd, and have long since been forgotten.” (Caulfield, 1937)  Despite, or perhaps because of these callous statements, there is some poetic justice in knowing that the Waltons have not been forgotten, that they achieved a form of recognition, although probably not in the way they might have imagined, and that a number of their descendants more than two centuries later had the privilege of lovingly and respectfully attending their interment at their final place of rest.

Lawrence and Margaret (Smith) Walton

Lawrence Walton was probably not the immigrant ancestor of the Walton family, however he was the first of that surname to settle in the Preston area.  The earliest record of him is his marriage to Margaret Smith, the daughter of Thomas and Hannah (Nettleton) Smith of Killingworth, Connecticut¹ on 10 August 1693, so it is assumed he arrived at Preston before then.  His marriage to Margaret, along with the births of their first four children, was recorded in the first volume of Preston town records (Preston Town Clerk, 1672-1848) .

Enhanced scan of the record of Lawrence and Margaret Walton marriage and the births
of their first four children from Preston Town Records, Volume 1, page 25

Lawrence and Margaret lived in Preston during the first years of their marriage, where Lawrence purchased 100 acres of land in Preston for £10 from Thomas and Anne Stanton on 10 August 1696, and sold that same land to Joseph Prentice for £22 on 15 February 1704 (Preston Land Records, 1687-1722 ), perhaps in preparation for a move to Norwich.

On 3 January 1706/7, Lawrence bought 220 acres of land "near the Northeasterly Corner of the bounds of Norwich, within said Norwich bounds”(Norwich Land Records, 1663-1764).  Three years later, he purchased three acres of meadow land near the Quinebaug River adjacent to his property in Canterbury (Norwich Land Records, 1663-1764; Porter, 1985). This probably explains why his son Lawrence’s birth in 1710 was recorded in Canterbury.  Although town boundaries changed over time, descriptions of their farm indicate it was in the northeastern part of Norwich near the Canterbury border. Daniel L. Phillips described the location of their property as follows:

“It was near the end of the seventeenth century on a farm abutting on the famous Norwich Northeast Corner Bound and covering lands in both of the ancient towns of Norwich and Preston, now known as the northern part of Griswold, that Lawrence and Mary* Smith Walton made their home.” (Phillips, 1918)

Today, this location is at the northwest corner of Griswold, near the border with Lisbon, south of the Canterbury border.

*David L. Phillips referred to Margaret Walton as Mary, and several Internet family trees refer to her as Margaret Mary.  It’s not clear where the name Mary comes from as land and vital records give her name as Margaret.

A year before his death, Lawrence Walton provided for his two eldest sons, John and Nathaniel, through the division of his land in two land deeds dated 10 June 1725 and 12 June 1725.  Because he didn’t provide for Margaret’s maintenance, it is assumed she had already died. According to Norwich town records, Lawrence Walton died 20 June 1726 (Vital Records of Norwich 1659-1848).

Nathaniel and his first wife, Jemima Walton

Nathaniel Walton, the second-oldest son of Lawrence and Margaret Walton, was born 20 March 1697 in Preston, Connecticut.  He married Jemima _____ about 1716, and settled on the land his father deeded to him in 1725. He and Jemima had six known children, born between 1717 and 1728.

The Walton Family Cemetery

By all accounts, Nathaniel and Jemima Walton remained on their farm for the remainder of their lives.  Jemima died 18 September 1754 at about 54 years of age.  She was probably buried at the location of the future family burial ground just after her death. On 29 March 1757 Nathaniel entered into a land transaction with his neighbor Stephen Johnson to purchase for 12 shillings a 49.5 foot by 66 foot parcel of land where Jemima was buried:

“Containing Twelve rods of Land Bounded as followeth and lying on the North End of a hill, Northeast from Sd Johnsons Now Dwelling House it being a Place where ye said Walton Improved for a Buring Plase and is bounded as followeth Beginning at a Stake with Stones about it from thence Runing three Rods West to a heap of Stones, thence running four rods north to a Stake with Stones about it thence Easterly three rods to a Stake with Stones about it  from thence south four rods the first mentioned bound”

“…to have the Privilege of a Convenient Way for him Self his Heirs and Afsigns forever, to pafs to and from said Twelve rods of Land to the Highway without any Moleftation from my Self, my Heirs & Afsigns for Ever…” (Norwich Land Records, 1663-1764, Volume 13, page 301)

Thus began the Walton Family Cemetery.  The site has been listed on the State of Connecticut’s Register of Historic Places as “Walton Cemetery: Lily Pond Road”, one of seventeen structures or features in Griswold of historic significance.  The Hale Collection identified the location of the cemetery as “1/4 mile N.E. of house on Dorothea Urloff farm” (Hale, 1932-5).  The Find a Grave website describes the location of the Walton Burial Ground as “North of Lily Pond Road off of Route 12, near the Plainfield line.” In his research of Griswold, Connecticut cemeteries, David L. Phillips provided the following description of the Walton Family Cemetery (Phillips, 1918):

“About a quarter of a mile northeast of the dwelling house on the Deacon Henry Johnson farm, now owned by Dorothy Ihloff, on a small plateau well within the bounds of the ancient Norwich Nine Miles-Square, are gathered among the scattered grove of pines, is a cluster of ancient graves known as the Walton Burying Ground, and here on what it supposed was once Walton land the Waltons laid their dead.  About thirty graves can still be made out, marked by rude stone slabs gathered from the fields. For the most part these stones bear no marks of identification of those laid there; one, however reveals the grave of the wife of Nathaniel Walton, the brother of John the scholar, for, crudely hammered on the stone by an unskilled hand are crude characters which spell out the following inscription:”

“September Ye 18, 1758*.
Then Died Thee
Wife Nathaniel
Walton, Name
Jemima.”

*The Hale Collection lists recorded year of death as 1754 and Bellantoni and Poirier list her year of death as 1759. Nathaniel Walton married, as his second wife, Hannah Smith on 19 June 1755, so 18 September 1754 is likely Jemima's correct death date.

	Illustration of Deacon Henry Johnson's home ¼ mile from the Walton Family Cemetery. (Hurd, 1882)

Old Johnson Dwelling House today, north of the intersection of Lily Pond Road and Haley Meadow Road (Google Maps, Street View)

Over the years, the precise location of the Walton Family Cemetery was essentially forgotten.  Marked only with Jemima Walton’s crude gravestone, and lacking any enclosing fieldstone walls or wood fencing, the burial ground eventually became concealed by the extensive overgrowth of vegetation.  Because the Town of Griswold’s zoning code required title search only for the past 40 years of a property, the location of the Walton burial ground had not been verified for some time (Bellantoni & Poirier, 1995) and the location of the cemetery was inaccurately shown on a 1917 map of Griswold cemeteries (Hanley, 1992; Libby, 1992).

Uncovering an Obscured Past

On a Sunday afternoon in November 1990, three 10-year-old boys were playing at H. David Geer’s sand and gravel pit and everything changed. Today, Geer Sand and Gravel is located on 852 Voluntown Road, however this location makes no sense to the story that ensued.  The old Johnson family dwelling house is located north of the intersection of Lily Pond Road and Haley Meadow Road.  The house was rebuilt in 2000, but the original structure was built in 1738 (Griswold Town Assessor's Records).

In 1990, H. David Geer owned two parcels of land on Plainfield Road: a 2-acre parcel of land at 669 Plainfield Road, south of Lily Pond Road where it intersects with Plainfield Road, and a 10.57-acre parcel at 693 Plainfied Road, north of Lily Pond Road where it intersects with Plainfield Road  (Griswold Town Assessor's Records; see blue outlined parcels in map below). This general location is consistent with the area described as the location of Lawrence and Margaret Walton’s farm. Aspinook Pond, a manmade embankment of the Quinebaug River, lies to the west of this area.  Lawrence Walton’s land bordered the Quinebaug River as described by a 1725 land deed to his son John.

Bellantoni et al. described the location of the Walton Family Cemetery as situated,"on the north end of a sandy knoll, northeast of the Johnson dwelling", noting that the Hale Collection of Connecticut Cemetery Inscriptions incorrectly"showed the cemetery location on a different hill east of the knoll and across a swift-flowing brook from where the cemetery was subsequently rediscovered" (Bellantoni et al., 1997).  Havey Brook, perhaps the swift-flowing brook, is located to the northeast of the map below, so the actual location of the Walton Family Cemetery most likely was within the blue outlined property at 693 Plainfield Road.  Part of this property is northeast of the Johnson family dwelling house.

Map of the most likely location of the Walton Family Burial Ground (Map: Griswold Town Assessor's Records; additional labels added)

The three 10-year old boys were having fun sliding down the steep embankment of the gravel pit, until two human skulls dislodged from the eroding slope and tumbled down the embankment with one of the boys.  He went home and told his mother, returning at one point with the skulls, after which his mother notified the police.  After criminal activity was ruled out, the State of Connecticut Archeologist Nicholas Bellantoni was brought in to examine the situation.  He recognized signs of six burial shafts and realized they had encountered the first row of an old colonial graveyard which, according to a 1917 map, was supposed to be located on the opposite side of a stream near the gravel pit, and not in the vicinity where H. David Geer was excavating (Hanley, 1992).  The instability of the sand and gravel bank precluded bank stabilization and preservation efforts to protect the graves at the very edge of the bank.  Bellantoni’s efforts quickly became a rescue operation. The plan was to remove the bodies, analyze them, research the history of the burial ground, conduct the required forensics, and then rebury the bodies in a safe place (Bellantoni, 2013; Bellantoni & Poirier, 1995).

Bellantoni sent two University of Connecticut students to the nearby town hall to research the historical land use and ownership of this particular land parcel, especially during the 18th century.  They found a copy of the 29 March 1757 land deed in which Nathaniel Walton purchased the land from Stephen Johnson and this connected the Walton family to the ancient burial ground (Bellantoni, 2013; Libby, 1992; Warneke).

Remembering a Forgotten Family

The archeological investigation revealed 29 graves containing six adult males, eight adult females, and l5 children and infants.  All but three were determined to be members of the Walton family who used the cemetery until the early 1800s and then abandoned it as family members moved from the area.  The cemetery was then used by another, unidentified family until about 1830 and then abandoned again.

Most of the bodies were laid out in a classic colonial Christian manner: on their back in a supine position with arms crossing, placed in an east-west direction with the head to the west, so as the body lays in the ground it faces the east, buried in a linen shroud held together with two pins, with no clothing or funerary objects, and placed within a wooden, hexagonal coffin (Bellantoni, 2013).

Three of the remains were determined to be from the other unidentified family, buried later, each buried in coffins with brass tacks which spelled the initials and age at death of each person, an adult male with inscription JB-55; an adult female with inscription IB-46, and a male child with inscription NB-13.  One of these coffins containing the complete skeleton of an adult male, JB-55, had been arranged in his coffin in a very uncharacteristic way for colonial Christian burials that completely puzzled the archeological team: his skull and thighbones had been removed from the rest of his skeleton and placed in a “skull and crossbones” manner on top of his ribs and vertebrae, which were in disarray.  Moreover, his skull was facing west, in direct opposition to conventional Christian burial (Bellantoni, 2013).

Bellantoni Map of the Graves in the Walton Family Cemetery (Bellantoni, 2013)

The bodies were initially sent to the University of Connecticut for analysis, but then sent to Washington, DC to be studied with DNA analysis by scientists at the Smithsonian Institution and the Army Medical Museum at Walter Reed Hospital (Bellantoni, 2013; Libby, 1992).

One of Bellantoni’s responsibilities as the State of Connecticut Archaeologist was to notify possible descendants of the situation.  He worked with the Griswold Historical Society and the Connecticut Genealogical Society to identify descendants of the Waltons who were eventually contacted in Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Nevada, Arkansas, and California. The initial response from the descendants was distress that their ancestral family burying ground had been compromised and was imminently threatened by the sand and gravel mining operation. However, the archeologists were able to assure the descendants that their ancestors’ remains would be handled in a respectful and professional manner, that their input was a priority, and that the situation offered a unique glimpse into the lives of their 18th century ancestors (Bellantoni & Poirier, 1995).

A reburial ceremony was conducted in the fall of 1992 for the remains of the 25 Walton family members who had been archeologically rescued from their family burial ground. Historical research showed that the Walton family belonged to the First Congregational Church of Griswold.  Walton family descendants from across the country attended as the Reverend Michael Beynon performed a traditional Puritan ceremony of reinterment at the nearby Hopeville Cemetery, contemporaneous with the Walton Family Cemetery. The remains of the 25 Walton family members were arranged in the manner they had originally been laid to rest at the Walton Family Cemetery, with the integrity of rows, body orientation, and relative positions re-established (Bellantoni & Poirier, 1995).

Reverend Michael Beynon of the First Congregational Church of Griswold performs the reburial service. (Warneke)

Understanding the Past

Study of the remains of the Walton family revealed some of the hardships of 18th century New England farm life.  One of the most striking characteristics of the Walton Family Cemetery was the number of children and infants buried there.  Half of the graves belonged to children under the age of 13, providing evidence that in the colonial era, parents could expect to lose one-third of their children before adulthood. In one area, seven Walton children were buried in a cluster.  It’s believed these children may have died during the measles or smallpox epidemics which swept the area in 1759 and 1790 (Bellantoni, 2013; Bellantoni & Poirier, 1995). 

 The pathological conditions observed in the burials from the Walton Cemetery reflect lives of hard physical labor on the farm, including osteoarthritis, spinal disc herniation, an unhealed femoral neck (hip) fracture in an elderly female, along with other conditions such as salivary gland tumors, and one case of particularly heavy dental calculus (Bellantoni, 2013; Bellantoni & Poirier, 1995).

Evidence of New England Vampire Folklore

Of particular interest was the skeleton of the 55 year old male, JB-55, who had been arranged in his coffin in a “skull and crossbones” manner.  His remains revealed symptoms of a chronic pulmonary infection severe enough to induce rib lesions. These symptoms would probably have included coughing, expectoration of mucous, and aches and pains of the chest, which if not actually caused by pulmonary tuberculosis, would likely have been interpreted as consumption by 19th century rural New Englanders (Bellantoni, 2013; Bellantoni & Poirier, 1995).

JB-55 brought to light how 18th and 19th century New England folklore provided explanations for conditions which couldn’t otherwise be explained, such as the vampire folklore belief about tuberculosis that predominated in eastern Connecticut and western Rhode Island.  Originating before the transmission of infectious diseases was understood,  the New England vampire belief was based on a folk interpretation of the physical appearance of the tuberculosis victim and the transmission of tuberculosis. As implied by the name consumption, the disease caused sufferers to waste away (Bellantoni & Poirier, 1995).

It was believed that after death, the family member with tuberculosis would rise from the grave and feed upon living relatives, causing  them to also come down with the illness. This could continue as long as the dead body in the grave remained undecomposed.  The solution was to exhume the body of a family member who had died from consumption and burn the heart to ensure surviving members of the family would not become victims on which the dead body could feed. It was determined that the body of JB-55 was exhumed about five years after his death and by that time his internal organs had completely decomposed. It was hypothesized that in the absence of a heart to be burned, the remedy was to place his bones in a “skull and crossbones” arrangement to ensure he caused no further harm to living family members (Bellantoni, 2013; Bellantoni & Poirier, 1995).

It should be noted here that none of the Walton family members exhibited signs of tuberculosis, nor was there any evidence of the New England vampire belief among the Walton family. It was the disturbance of the Walton Family Cemetery that coincidentally shed light on the circumstance of JB-55’s burial.  Evidence indicates that JB-55, IB-46 and NB-13 were not members of the Walton family and began using the Walton Family Cemetery for their family burials after the Walton family had abandoned the use of the cemetery (Bellantoni & Poirier, 1995).

While Bellantoni & Poirier note that Walton family members abandoned the cemetery because they moved west to Ohio and beyond, there were direct descendants of Nathaniel Walton who continued to live and work on the Walton farm, but no longer used the cemetery.  My fifth great-grandfather, Daniel Walton (1758-1845), was a son of Nathaniel Walton and his second wife, Hannah (Smith) Walton.  Daniel inherited Nathaniel Walton's farm.  In his will, written 5 October 1775 and probated 4 May 1779 (Connecticut Probate Records, 1609-1999, Nathaniel Walton bequeathed to Daniel,“all my lands buildings thereon that is in Norwich”, which included 115 acres of land with buildings, valued at £4,000 (about $188,320 in 2023).  This was probably “all ye land yt I have within the Township of Norwich or ever shall or Could have any right unto by any former purchas, or in Comon & undevidded Land, but especially ye farm that I now live on” originally granted in 1725 by Lawrence Walton to “my loving son Nathaniell Wolton”(Norwich Land Records, 1717-1727).  Yet, Daniel Walton and his family no longer used the ancestral burial ground. Daniel Walton and his first wife, Zerviah (Slafter) Walton, are buried at the Read and Herskell Cemetery in nearby Lisbon, Connecticut.  Their daughter, my fourth great-grandmother Alice (Walton) Olin, is buried with her husband, Squire, and several of their relatives at Geer Cemetery in Griswold, Connecticut.

The remains of JB-55 were put through extensive DNA testing in an effort to identify him. Surname prediction was conducted from Y-chromosomal (patriarchal) DNA, resulting in two individuals who shared an almost identical profile to JB55. The surname Barber was listed for both individuals, a compelling result given the surname of JB-55 also begins with a “B” (Daniels-Higgenbotham, et al., 2019).

Historical records were searched to determine whether there was a burial record for a J. Barber in Griswold, Connecticut in the early 1800s. A death notice in the Charles R. Hale Collection of Cemetery Inscriptions and Newspaper Notices listed a John Barber whose son Nathan Barber died in Griswold in 1826 at the age of 12. This death record closely matches the information on NB-13 who was discovered near JB-55 along with an adult female IB-46. Although no further information has been found on John or Nathan Barber, 1810 and 1820 census records show a John Barber lived in nearby Canterbury, Connecticut in 1810 and 1820, with another, younger John Barber appearing in the 1820 census, possibly a son of the other John Barber (Daniels-Higgenbotham, et al., 2019).

My line of descent from Lawrence and Margaret Walton down to my maternal grandmother is as follows:

1. Lawrence Walton + Margaret Smith

2. Nathaniel Walton + Hannah Smith

3. Daniel Walton + Zerviah Slafter

4. Alice Walton + Squire Olin

5. Susannah Olin + Thomas Phillips, Jr.

6. Susan M. Phillips + Abel Burdick

7. Frank Rowland Burdick + Sarah Hannah Clark

8. Bertha Melissa Burdick

End Notes

1. In her genealogy, The Family of Willis Vernon Farr Past and Present Including Descendants if His Grandfather, Ivah Newtok Farr and a Number of Female Lines, Jane E. Bickford makes the case, that Margaret (Smith) Walton, wife of Lawrence Walton, was probably the daughter Thomas and Hannah (Nettleton) Smith of Guilford and Killingworth, Connecticut. Killingworth records show a daughter, Margaret, born to this couple on 6 March 1668.  Bickford's assertion is supported by John D. Hoff in his Connecticut Nutmegger paper, "The Ancestry of Samuel Smith of Preston, Connecticut, who Married Sarah Tracy".  Hoff makes the case that an older brother of Margaret Smith -- Samuel -- son of Thomas and Hannah (Nettleton) Smith, left Killingworth in 1695 when he was 35 years of age and purchased 50 acres of land in Preston, Connecticut from Thomas Leffiingwell on 4 April 1696. The land was on the east side of the "Quanabauge'' River in Preston, so probably fairly close to the land Lawrence Walton bought from Solomon Tracy on 3 January 1706/7. The family of Lawrence and Margaret (Smith) Walton corroborated this relationship in the naming of their children.  Lawrence and Margaret Walton named two of their children Thomas and Hannah, probably after Margaret's parents, Thomas and Hannah (Nettleton) Smith.  Their daughter, Hannah, married Jabez Green. They named their two oldest children Hannah and Thomas, probably also for their maternal great-grandparents, Thomas and Hannah (Nettleton) Smith. Margaret (Smith) Walton's parentage presents an interesting connection in the next generation, because her son Nathaniel Walton married for his second wife, Hannah Smith, a great-granddaughter of Thomas and Hannah (Nettleton) Smith.  Nathaniel and Hannah were first cousins once removed.

Works Cited

Bellantoni, N. (2013, March 19). New England Vampire Folk Belief: Archaeological Evidence. A lecture sponsored by Quinnipiac University's College of Arts and Sciences. Hamden, Connecticut. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiCKJBHdNgo

Bellantoni, N., & Poirier, D. A. (1995). Family, Friends, and Cemeteries. (N. P. U.S. Department of the Interior, Ed.) Cutural Resources Management, 18(1), 29-31.

Bellantoni, N. F., Sledzik, P. S., & Poirier, D. A. (1997). Rescue, Research, and Reburial. In D. A. Poirier, & N. F. Bellantoni (Eds.), In Remembrance: Archeology and Death (pp. 131-154). Westport, Connecticut: Bergin & Garvey.

Caulfield, E. (1937, March). Dr. John Walton, Yale 1720. Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 9(4).

Caulkins, F. M. (1866). History of Norwich, Connecticut from its possession by the Indians, to the year 1866. Published by the author.

CT. Probate Records. (1609-1999). Probate Files Collection, Early to 1880. (Ancestry.com, Ed.) Connecticut, Wills and Probate Records, 1609-1999.

Daniels-Higgenbotham, J., Gorden, E. M., Farmer, S. K., Spatola, B., Damann, F., Bellantolli, N., . . . Marshall, C. (2019). DNA Testing Reveals the Putative Identity of JB55, a 19th Century Vampire Buried in Griswold, Connecticut. Genes, 10(9), 636.

Hale, C. R. (1932-5). Hale Collection of Cemetery Inscriptions and Newspaper Notices, 1629-1934. Hartford, Connecticut: Connecticut State Lbrary.

Griswold Town Assessor's Records, online database at https://www.qpublic.net/ct/griswold/ accessed in September 2021.

Hanley, C. (1992, September 10). Descendants attend reburial of 25. Meriden Record-Journal.

Libby, S. (1992, February 16). Cemetery Holds Tales of Vampires. The New York Times, p. 119.

Norwich Land Records (Vols. 1, 4-7, 10, 11, 13-15). (1663-1764). Norwich, Connecticut: Family History Center Microfilm # 5023, 5025- 29. Accessed from Anchorage, Alaska Family History Center.

Norwich Vital Records. (1640-1834). Norwich Connecticut Births, Marriages, Deaths 1640-1834, Volume 1, Family History Library Film # 007730319.

Phillips, D. L. (1918). Griswold Cemeteries. Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Twenty-two Burial Places in Griswold, Connecticut, and St. Mary's Cemetery in Lisbon, Connecticut, with Copies of all the Inscriptions on their Monuments.

Porter, G. S. (1985). A Genealogy, the Descendants of Lawrence Walton of Preston, Connecticut Circa 1693. Norwich: Privately Published. Available through the Genealogy Department of the Allen County, Indiana Public Library (reference only) and electronically through several public family trees on Ancestry.com.

Preston Land Records. (1687-1722). Preston, Connecticut: Volumes 1 and 4, Family History Microfilm # 5381, accessed at the Anchorage, Alaska Family History Center.

Preston Town Clerk. (1672-1848). Births Marriages Deaths, Family History Library Microfilm #1311194. Preston, Connecticut.

Ring, R. (2011, November 8). The serendipitous discovery of COOL STUFF in the Watkinson. Retrieved from The Bibliophile's Lair: http://commons.trincoll.edu/watkinson/2011/11/08

Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut. (1913). Vital Records of Norwich 1659-1848. Hartford: Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut.

Warneke, J. (n.d.). Walton History in New England. Privately Published.