April may well have been "the cruelest month" for Swain Ogden's family, not only for his passing in 1755, but for the "fearful pestilence" that had killed little Sarah, Mary, and John twenty years earlier. The epidemic, thought to be diptheria, claimed the lives of many children in the New England and Mid-Atlantic colonies during the chilly wet spring of 1735. By that time the Ogdens had settled farther west, where they were attending the Orange Presbyterian Church. The three youngest children were subsequently interred in its churchyard, as was Mr. Ogden after his death in 1755. Mrs. Ogden, who survived him by a little over a year, is buried beside him. His brown sandstone stele features a soul effigy of the winged death's head type in its tympanum, a symbol which was as popular during the early colonial era as it appears grim to modern eyes.
April may well have been "the cruelest month" for Swain Ogden's family, not only for his passing in 1755, but for the "fearful pestilence" that had killed little Sarah, Mary, and John twenty years earlier. The epidemic, thought to be diptheria, claimed the lives of many children in the New England and Mid-Atlantic colonies during the chilly wet spring of 1735. By that time the Ogdens had settled farther west, where they were attending the Orange Presbyterian Church. The three youngest children were subsequently interred in its churchyard, as was Mr. Ogden after his death in 1755. Mrs. Ogden, who survived him by a little over a year, is buried beside him. His brown sandstone stele features a soul effigy of the winged death's head type in its tympanum, a symbol which was as popular during the early colonial era as it appears grim to modern eyes.
Inscription
"Here lies ye Body
of Swain Ogden
who Died April
2 0, 1 7 5 5
in ye 68th year
of his Age."
Gravesite Details
Source of parental links: Findagrave member "rwtack"