Elizabeth Bulkeley my first cousin 10x removed on RootsMagic tree

Elizabeth Bulkeley was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1637. Her grandpa, Reverend Peter Bulkeley migrated from England and founded Concord in 1635. Peter was the first pastor of First Parish Church in Concord. Elizabeth’s dad Edward was the 3rd pastor. Elizabeth married a pastor, Joseph Emerson who also migrated to America from England.

Elizabeth and Joseph married in Concord and had 6 kids all born there. One son Edward Emerson married Rebecca Waldo, whose 3rd great grandson was Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson wrote a poem Hamatreya mentioning his 5th great grandpa Peter Bulkeley, a few lines, worth reading the full poem:

“Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm.
Saying, T’is mine, my children’s and my name’s.
Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds. 
Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys.
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Mine and yours; Mine, not yours.
Earth endures Stars abide -.

In 1680, Elizabeth was a widow and married John Browne. Elizabeth died in 1693, she and John Browne are both buried at Old Burying Ground in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Elizabeth and John’s gravestones are art, chiseled from stone with winged skulls, grapes, vines. John’s is more decayed than Elizabeth’s. A sign at John Browne’s Find a Grave memorial, “The gravestones in this semi-circle were originally located in the town’s first Burying Ground, near the present site of the Bandstand. These stones represent some of the oldest expressions of Puritan gravestone art in New England”.

Inscription: Memento Mori “remember you will die” Fugue Hora “the hour flees” Here lyes ye body of Mrs. Elizabeth Browne wife to Cap’n John Brown Esq and former wife of ye Reverend Mr Joseph Emerson of Mendon who deceased Septemb’r ye 4th 1693 in ye 56 year of her age.

Sources

• First Parish church history with Reverends Peter and son Edward Bulkeley
• Marriage Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001 at FamilySearch
• Hamatreya via Poetry Foundation
• Gravestone at Lucius Beebe Memorial Library Digital Heritage collection, photo by Jeffrey Klapes.
• History of Wakefield’s Old Burying Ground at Wakefield Historical Society