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Archiver > NYDUTCHE > 2006-11 > 1162732892


From: "Danielle Ramcke" <>
Subject: Re: [NYDUTCHE] HAWLEY Family - A Neglected Tomb - Salt Point- 1928
Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 08:21:32 -0500
References: <002301c7006c$06c0e000$6c615743@GinnyDesktop>


Ginny
I just read the article about the Hawley family. You have done a great justice to the people in that vault. Maybe someone will know them. Sad to know people would actually open the caskets of these people.
Keep up the great service
Danielle
----- Original Message -----
From: Ginny<mailto:>
To: Dutchess Roots List<mailto:>
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 6:50 PM
Subject: [NYDUTCHE] HAWLEY Family - A Neglected Tomb - Salt Point- 1928


Not My Family but I thought this might be of interest to someone - I can't help but grab these articles when I'm looking for something else on the microfilm - This article had a picture of the "Neglected Tomb" - not the greatest when printed from the microfilm - but - if anyone wants the picture - e-mail me - Off List - and I will scan and send it to you! These folks are a mystery to me as I can't seem to find them in Census - I may have found Mary, a widow age 82 - Mother of 0 with 0 Living in Pleasant Valley in the 1910 census - her neighbors are Henry Knickerbocker and David Smith - Maybe this will help someone! Would be interested in just what a soap box is - perhaps a wooden box that one would buy soap in in early years????
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Sunday Courier
Weekly Newspaper Published at Poughkeepsie
Sunday, June 10, 1928

A NEGLECTED TOMB

Bodies of Hawley Family,
Long Dead,
Lie in Vault in Field

Elaborate Burial Place on
Edge of Swamp
Attracts Visitors

In a field several hundred feet back from the west side of the road between Salt Point and Hibernia, resting in a brick and marble tomb, the doors of which are unlocked, rest the skeletons of three persons, two men and a woman. Lewis Hawley and his wife, Mary Hawley, and son, Archibald Hawley and its contents on the edge of a swamp has long been known to the people of the neighborhood and most of the residents in that section have visited the vault [. . . . bad line in film here . . . ] the strange burying place has spread and many persons from Poughkeepsie and elsewhere have visited the place.

The vault is built of brick on two sides. The front and roof are of marble six inches thick. It was built by Lewis Hawley many years ago at a cost, it is reported of $1,500. It would cost three times that sum today. Just why he elected to have himself and his family laid to rest there instead of being buried in a cemetery has always been a source of speculation in the neighborhood.

Only the marble roof and a small part of the vault are visible from the road. The vault faces the west. It has three iron doors at the entrance. The plot is surrounded by a high substantial wire fence and bushes and young trees.

Two of the bodies lie in caskets. The bones of a third person lie in a soap box with a wire screen covering. The body of a man lies at the left of the entrance. The woman's body lies at the right. The soap box is in a corner. The glass in the casket of the man is broken. The tops of both caskets have been removed and put back in place by many who have visited the place.

On one casket is a silver plate which reads:

Mary Hawley
1827-1912

Mrs. Hawley was the last of the family to be laid in the vault. Lewis Hawley, the head of the family, died October 15, 1887, at the age of sixty-nine years, according to a carving on the outside of the vault. Archibald, apparently the son, died May 16, 1899, at the age of forty-eight years.

There is a story to the effect that when her son died Mrs. Hawley never permitted his room or bed to be touched. For years afterward she sat in the shade at the entrance to the vault all during the summer days because she wanted to be near her boy.

The man now owning the land on which the vault is located has left the place undisturbed. He has refused to sell the marble in the construction and has not yet made up his mind as to what he will ultimately do with the place. So far as is known, there are no near relatives of this branch of the Hawley family living.

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Ginny

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