By Gretchen Webster
WESTPORT — Brigadier General Henry Moses Judah, a career Army officer in the Civil and Mexican-American wars, finally got a headstone of his own in the King’s Highway Cemetery, where he was laid to rest 158 years ago.
On Monday afternoon, the stone was laid at the tomb entrance where the general is buried with his father and mother in the communal grave of Ozias Marvin, along with about 45 other people.
Communal tombs were common in 1866, when Judah was buried. They did not have the equipment to dig separate graves during the winter when the ground was frozen, or it may have been to save money, according to Peter Jennings, the church historian at Greens Farms Church, and the author of the book, “Buried in Our Past, The History of Westport Cemeteries.” Jennings, an 11th-generation Westport resident, was present at the installation of Judah’s headstone.
The concrete bed for the new grave marker was prepared and the stone laid by two stone masons from Norwalk, Raymond Gilbody and Dennis Stachelczyk.
Gilbody has installed only one headstone prior to Monday, but he said he found the historical significance of Judah’s stone interesting. The two men read up on General Judah’s life when they received the marker that was shipped to Westport from Wisconsin two weeks ago.
The stone masons dug a shallow trench in front of the tomb door, just large enough for the stone, then poured a small concrete pad to hold the stone. The men then carried the heavy grave maker across a very busy King’s Highway to place it in the trench.
Henry Moses Judah
Then they added more concrete around the marker, making sure that the stone was level. The whole process took about two hours.
The grave marker was paid for by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, and installation costs provided by a donor to an organization called Shrouded Veterans, which has installed more than 100 headstones recognizing the unmarked graves of Civil War officers.
Frank Jastrzembski, the head of the Shrouded Veterans, had contacted First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker in January about installing a headstone for Judah. Grayson Braun, chair of the Historic District Commission, then worked with Jastrzembski to facilitate delivery and installation of the marker.
Judah is credited with capturing Confederate General John Hunt Morgan in Ohio 1863. He was also a commander in Union General Ambrose Burnside’s expedition to secure control of Knoxville, Tenn., according to an obituary in the BurlingtonTimes.
Judah, however, apparently had problems with alcoholism and was demoted to administrative duties after Morgan was captured. He died at the age of 45 in Plattsburgh, N.Y., where he was stationed, and his body was accompanied to Westport by his brother where he was interred in the Marvin tomb. The burial site also contains the remains of Judah’s father, the Rev. Henry Judah, who was a rector of St. John’s Church in Bridgeport, and his mother, Mary Jane Judah.
Ozias Marvin, also a military veteran, was known for hosting George Washington at Marvin’s tavern on “the Westport-Norwalk Road” on Nov. 11, 1789, according to a diary entry in the national archives by Washington.
The Revolutionary War leader and nation’s first president was not happy with his stay there. The Marvin tavern “is not a good House, though the People of it were disposed to do all they cou’d to accomodate me,” he said in the diary entry. Marvin died in 1807.
It is believed there are five other large communal burial sites like the Marvin tomb in King’s Highway Cemetery, Jennings said, although entrances to only two are visible. The Marvin tomb is closest to the street, situated on a hill with a small iron gate in front and a large, mostly illegible, stone over the entrance.
“The cemetery is a mess,” Jennings said of its many fallen trees and fallen headstones. He cleared vines and vegetation from the front of the Marvin tomb last weekend to make it easier for the stone masons to install the marker for General Judah.
Gilbody and Stachelczyk were pleased with the results of their work, as befit the grave marker’s link to local history. Gilbody said he was happy to play a part in honoring a veteran, and would be interested in helping pay tribute to other military veterans, especially those from World War II.
“I would be willing to install headstones for free for anyone who fought in World II,” he said. “Because if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be here.”
Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.
They put the marker on the wrong tomb!!! This is not the vault that Judah was buried in. What is called Colonel Marvin’s Tomb–at least within the records of the Westport Historical Society, and in other records of Judah’s burial–encompasses a series of vaults in the hillside, not the single vault here bearing the Marvin name. This is irresponsible recording of history by this veterans group.
The correct location is within the records of the Westport Historical Society. The correct location is the arched stone mound on the corner of the cemetery, prominently visible just behind a thick tree at the corner of King’s Hwy and Wilton Rd. The stones themselves are in an arch pattern, and heavily eroded. It is said to have been vandalized years ago, and when I visited it c.2010, there was a narrow opening beneath the horizontal stone header. I was looking for Judah’s grave, peered in with a flashlight and saw to the back left a metal coffin resembling an Egyptian sarcophagus, shaped like a human body with shoulders and chest narrowing to feet and a face plate like on a diving helmet or something over the head.
I had never seen anything like it and when I looked it up found out that this very unusual ‘Fisk’ (or similar style) coffin was only used for a short period, and almost entirely for soldiers who died in the Civil War or shortly afterward, as Judah did. I told Katie Chase, of the Westport Historical Society, about my find and she retrieved a bunch of information for me about the Marvin Tomb and the Judah family from their records. When I checked off the names of the many burials and their dates of death, HM Judah’s was the only burial during the time period that these caskets were used; confirming the obvious. This broken, stone-arch vault (one of a number included within the ‘Marvin tomb’ as recorded) is Judah’s final resting place. Notified by me (as I understand it) that Gen. Judah was buried here and that the grave was open, the Historical Society undertook some time later, shortly before Ms. Chase’s death, to repair the grave. I happened to meet Sven, of the Westport Historical Society, in 2016 and he showed me photos on his cell phone of Judah’s casket, as he was present during the repair work.
I have told this story several times under articles about Judah in the local press. These guys didn’t do their research. They’re in such a hurry to honor veterans (and perhaps to make a statement) that they are actually messing up the historical record by sloppy monument making. You can find a photo of Judah’s actual vault as the main photo on the following FindaGrave site for King’s Highway Cemetery: https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/832228/kings-highway-cemetery. I hope they will put the monument where it belongs. It will do better in the right spot anyway, because a flat monument like this will just get covered over where it is now in future years; and then some genius will discover it in a hundred years a think he has found where Gen. Judah is buried. On Judah’s vault, the area in front of the door has already been filled by soil and grassed over.
I should add to my previous comment, for full disclosure, that my ID of Judah’s vault is based on my memory of data gathered in 2010, data I do not have entirely at hand. I saw a Fisk or Fisk-style metal casket. My research at the time indicated that most such burials (except for limited use by the wealthy) were from the Civil War period, that the Army purchased these in bulk because they could be sealed with lead for transport and viewing without odor, given the logistical reality that prompt transportation from war zones was not always available. Judah died in 1866, shortly after the war while still on active duty. His immediate family was not wealthy and I presume that the Army had some of these on hand when he died and hooked him up. My memory is that I looked up the dates of death for each of the 51 names in the Marvin tomb (which contains multiple vaults) and only HM Judah’s fell during the period. But consulting my notes now, I find the list of 51 names, but no associated dates, which I presumably looked up online and have since lost track of. Confirmation will require checking off these dates to be certain that no one else died in the same period.
Sven Selander, a longtime Weston resident and member of the Westport Historical Society when I met him in 2016, took photos of the casket during repair of the vault, which could be peered into below its horizontal stone header, through what was once perhaps a wooden header, then rotted by ground contact. Sven might have found some other positive identification for the casket and should be consulted if possible.
I take back my accusation of sloppy history. I have spoken separately prior to this with Frank Jastrzembski of Shrouded Veterans and he is well informed and a real historian, realer than me. He is based out of the Midwest I believe and I think there must simply have been some confusion and/or understandable lack of awareness between the various parties who contributed to installing this marker. I understood from my previous communication with Frank that he had read and understood my description of the tomb location but perhaps this was not so (and understandably for someone from out of town), or this part of things somehow got lost or left out in communications between parties. I am not familiar with his organization and know neither that they were too hasty in their determination or eager to promote any political causes associated with veterans. That is my own bias against amateur Civil War history buffs, and I don’t think Frank fits that mold. I should have finished drinking my coffee in the morning. The possibility remains that multiple burials will fit the Fisk time period and that my own theory is conjectural.
Zachary
While I appreciate your interest in history, you are not using proper sources.
The Marvin Tomb is well described as a marble tomb covered in ivy (History of Westport Garden Club 1924-2014), and there are others that I don’t have time to pull up. It is the one on the far left, (and say’s “Marvin” above the entrance) where General Judah’s marker was just laid. I was the longest serving Board member (22 years) at the former WHS, and I know Sven, both he and I took pictures of the inside of the vault on the extreme right on 10/15/15 and I have these photo’s. Yes the casket you describe is correct -but this does not mean it belongs to Gen. Judah ! Find-a-Grave is a very poor source to reference and has many errors as anyone can post to it.
Peter Jennings, Church Historian
Green’s Farms Church
This is a fascinating. History comes alive, walks out of a vault and into the post modern world.
I appreciate everybody’s work on this.