LOCATION:
Brookside Cemetery

DATE:
Circa 1854

NARRATIVE: (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Orville Hungerford Personal Details:
Born: October 29, 1790 in Briston, Connedticut.
Diet: April 6, 1851 in Watertown, New York
Cause of Death: Billious Cholic.
Political Party: Democratic Party
Spouse: Betsey Elizabeth Porter Stanley (1785 – 1861
Occupation: Merchant, Banker, Industrialist, Politician, Railroad President

Orville Hungerford (October 29, 1790 – April 6, 1851) was a two-term United States Representative for the 19th District in New York. He was also a prominent merchant, banker, industrialist, freemason, philanthropist, and railroad president in Watertown, New York.

An entry in a 1905 genealogical publication by the local historical society described the education of Orville Hungerford as follows:
His was a life of industry and thrifty habits from the beginning. He had none of the advantages of a liberal education, having only been privileged to attend the common schools of his neighborhood. In these, however, and by private study of such books as he could gain use of, he thoroughly grounded himself in the elementary branches of knowledge, and at the same time became so habituated to reading and observation that even as a young man he was liberally informed, and in mid-life his attainments would put to confusion many collegiates of the present day.[5]

On October 13, 1813, Orville Hungerford married Elizabeth Porter Stanley, known as Betsey or sometimes spelled Betsy, whose family was originally from Wethersfield, Connecticut.[20] Betsey was the daughter of George and Hannah (Porter) Stanley.[21] She was 5 years older than her husband when they met in the midst of the War of 1812.

Orville Hungerford’s success was a direct result of the support given by his wife Betsey: “She was a woman of beautiful character and disposition, and an efficient colaborer with her revered husband in all his benevolent works.”

After a 12-day illness starting out as “bilious cholic”, which then affected his brain in the form of paralysis, Orville Hungerford died on Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. on April 6, 1851. The Otsego Democrat newspaper in Cooperstown, N.Y. stated that the cause of his death was “apoplexy”, i.e., the archaic term for stroke.

Orville was then buried several miles away in a humble grave near his parents and siblings in the “Old Grounds” on the former Sawyer Farm in what is now the Town of Watertown, New York. In 1854, his son Richard Esselstyne Hungerford spent $256 to purchase a lot in the contiguous and recently established Brookside Cemetery, so that the family could erect a mausoleum. At the time, the price of a wooded lot in the Brookside Cemetery was set at eight cents per square foot. Orville’s body would be reinterred there on the south side of the crypt in 1860. The gothic structure, made from bird eye limestone and brownish cast stone, is supported by twelve pier buttresses, punctured by trefoil windows on each side, and graced with an octagonal spire sheathed in slate.

(To read the entrie biography go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orville_Hungerford)