10

THOSE LEFT BEHIND

Shadows Flee Away

Maggie’s maternal grandparents raised her brother, Mason Sheffield. The couple was well to do, and Mason was provided with a privileged lifestyle. In 1898, he applied to Webb’s Academy and Home for Shipbuilders, located at 188^th Street in the Bronx, New York. The private undergraduate engineering college had been established by shipbuilder William Henry Webb in 1889. Having experienced the hardship of financing his own education, Webb wanted to offer young men interested in shipbuilding the opportunity to advance toward their chosen career without worrying about money. Those accepted at Webb’s Academy would receive four years of training at no expense. Built of New York brownstone in the Romanesque style to resemble a castle, the academy had an attached hospital and home for the aged where elderly shipbuilders and their wives were given a place to live free of charge.

In 1902, Mason graduated from the academy, along with eleven other students. On September 14, 1910, he married twenty-nine-year-old Elsie Lenore Thorp, who had also enjoyed a lifestyle of affluence. A resident of Stonington, her father was the proprietor of a hardware store, and their family’s staff at that time included two household servants.

Mason and his new wife removed to a home located at 165 Broadway in New York, where he worked as a draughtsman. The couple later relocated to 880 Clermont Street in Brooklyn, and Mason worked as a topographical draughtsman for Corporation Counsel Delany’s Bureau of Street Department.

In the fall of 1916, Mason returned to Mystic, where he and his wife took up residence at the Octagon House, a two-story structure built in 1850, on West Mystic Avenue at Willow Point, and he began designing boats. They called their home Rose View Cottage, and in the summer of 1917, Elsie held a tea to celebrate a visit from Mason’s aunt Mary Charlotte Brightman, who had brought along her grandson.

Later that year, Mason and Elsie removed to 5551 Pulaski Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Mason was an assistant designer for an engraving company. Elise had given birth to two sons in New York, in 1915 and 1917, and by 1920, Mason was employed as a shipyard draftsman. At that time, the family was living in a rented house at 2970 North Congress Road in Camden, New Jersey. A few years later, they moved to the town of Burlington and settled into a home at 423 Cinnamonson Avenue while Mason worked as a structural engineer.

By 1933, Mason and his family were back in New York, at Pearl River and, two years later, living at 45 Adrian Avenue in New York City, where Mason worked for the Board of Water Supply, located at 346 Broadway. He passed away on June 28, 1952.

Mason Crary Hill, the man who had taken on the responsibility of raising his grandson and providing him with great opportunity, was born in the winter of 1817 in New London, Connecticut. After the tragic death of his wife, Mary Ann, and his subsequent marriage to Margaret Wheeler, he enjoyed great success brought about by his shipbuilding venture. His shipyard, located at Pistol Point at the foot of Willow Hill in Mystic, gained him such high regard that, during the Civil War, he was selected by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to act as inspector of government sailing vessels. He filled the position for several years. Prior to the war, he had constructed clipper ships there at Pistol Point, among them being the Seminole, the Flying Cloud, the Southern Lights, the Twilight and the Golden Horn.

Business advertisements for “M.C. Hill” at Mystic Bridge stated that he provided shipbuilding in all its branches and was a dealer in oak and yellow pine, timberland plank, pure leads oil, turpentine, varnish, mixed paints and colors, glass, putty, brushes, Paris green, tar pitch, rosin, coal tar and bright varnish, oakum, caulking cotton, iron spikes, chains, anchors, wire rope and rigging and moth-proof felts. Mason also added that he was an agent for Averill, rubber and other paints and Leffert’s Galvanizing.

Mason and Margaret resided at 295 York Street near the Mystic Bridge with their family. Their first child, Mary, died at the age of thirty-three in 1888. Son Charles died in 1881 at the age of twenty-five. James was born in 1858 and died in 1863. Their fourth child, son John Ethan Hill, was born in 1864, lived well into adulthood and graduated from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

Daughter Lucy was born and died in 1867 with their next daughter, who was unnamed, dying the same day she was born in 1869. In 1871, son Herbert Crary Hill was born, and he also went on to graduate from Yale University. In his 1894 yearbook, he stated that although he had never researched his family history, he believed that his ancestry could be traced back to William the Conqueror. He also stated that he believed he was of English, Irish, French, Russian, Scotch and German blood. Another daughter belonging to the Hills, Maggie, died in 1874 when she was just a year old.

Mason and Margaret celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary on July 24, 1904. The following year, they both passed away and were laid to rest in the Hill family plot within Elm Grove Cemetery in Mystic. There, they joined Mason’s first wife, the many sons and daughters they had lost all too soon and the granddaughter they had so adored in her five short years of life. Behind Mason’s large grave marker is the small scroll-shaped stone erected for Maggie. To her immediate left is where her mother lies. And to the other side of Mary Ann lies Frank Sheffield.

The gravestones of Mary Ann, Maggie and Frank Sheffield at Elm Grove Cemetery in Mystic, Connecticut. Photograph by Kelly Sullivan Pezza.

The engraving on Mary Ann’s stone reads, “Until the daybreak.” Frank’s stone is etched with the words “Shadows flee away,” and undoubtedly there was some thought put into making a connection between Frank and Mary Ann as both epitaphs come from the King James version of the Holy Bible, Song of Solomon: “Until the day break and the shadows flee away, turn my beloved and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.”

John Franklin Sheffield, who had been the custodian of his tiny granddaughter when she was killed, was born on January 8, 1823, to John Sheffield and Eliza Lewis. At the time of Maggie’s death, he had made his home at 29 Coit Street in Norwich and was pastoring at the Greenville Methodist Church. He had followed in the footsteps of his father, John, by becoming a minister. John Sr. had been a successful carriage-maker before answering the call to preach and becoming ordained to serve in the Methodist church.

The elder John’s brother, Washington Wentworth Sheffield, was one of New London’s leading dentists who blazed new trails in the subject of oral care. He established the International Tooth Crown Company and constructed a laboratory behind his house where he conducted experiments and invented such successful products as Dr. Sheffield’s Crème Dentifrice, Dr. Sheffield’s Tooth Powder and Dr. Sheffield’s Elixir Balm. He is credited with being the first person to market toothpaste in a tube. By 1900, John had removed to Putnam and died there on March 8 of that year. His second wife, Mary, passed away eight years later, on January 13, 1908.

Maggie’s aunt Mary Charlotte Sheffield was born on June 10, 1848, and married George Brightman on June 8, 1881, in Marshfield, Massachusetts. On September 20, 1884, she gave birth to her one and only child, Edgar Sheffield Brightman, in Holbrook. She died on May 2, 1930, shortly before her eighty-second birthday.

Edgar attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, to prepare for the gospel ministry. Upon completion of his education there, he studied at the Boston University School of Theology, followed by the University of Berlin and the University of Marburg, both located in Germany. He received his PhD in Boston in 1912 and went on to teach philosophy, psychology, ethics and religion at several institutions, including Brown University, and lectured at several others, including Harvard University. Edgar had a great interest in Hinduism and was a staunch opponent of literalism in religion and irrationalism in theology.

Edgar married Charlotte Huelson on July 1, 1912, in Brooklyn, New York. She died in University Place, Nebraska, on May 24, 1915, at the age of twenty-nine, and her remains were transported to Connecticut on August 2 so that she could be laid to rest in Elm Grove Cemetery. Edgar next married Irma Baker Fall on June 8, 1918, in Middletown, Connecticut. He went on to become the father of three children and died in Newton Center, Massachusetts, in 1953.

George Brightman was born in Mystic on August 24, 1852. He united with the Methodist Episcopal Church in Mystic at the age of seventeen. He was soon licensed to begin leading meetings, and wanting to be successful in answering his call to the ministry, he entered the East Greenwich Academy so that he might prepare for college. However, for reasons unknown, he was unable to continue his education there, so he left East Greenwich in 1881 and joined the New England Southern Conference. Out of the class of ten students, he was one of only five who went on to follow a path in religion.

George’s first pastorate was later in 1881, at South Braintree, Massachusetts, where he remained for three years. He went on to preach at numerous places of worship in Massachusetts, including churches in Holbrook, West Abington, Nantucket, North Dighton, Plymouth, Attleboro, Provincetown and Edgartown. His work also took him into Rhode Island, where he served churches in Providence, Newport and Pascoag. He preached in Middletown, Connecticut, as well.

While living in Edgartown, George became ill, and though he attempted to continue on with his life and career, he did not seem to be recovering from his malady. Finally, his doctor ordered him to seek a change of climate and engage in a period of rest. He did so but returned home after a while, feeling worse than he had before. While preaching his last sermon shortly before he died, everyone in attendance could see how seriously unwell George was. As his physical condition declined further, he was unable to quell the pain and often had to retire to a chair or kneel on the floor with his head rested. During this time, he would regularly speak about how much he loved his brethren in the ministry. He died in Connecticut on March 18, 1906.

Frank’s brother, Charles Sheffield, was born in 1855 and married Adele Fiero when he was thirty-three years old. By 1910, the couple had removed to Huron Street in Hennepin, Minnesota, where he worked as a timekeeper in a flour mill. Charles fathered three children, and following family tradition, his eldest daughter became a teacher.