Curious Graves of Massachusetts - Nathaniel Thurston's 7 Wives

This adventure began with a casual conversation between my wife and I one night, involving a subject that is very near and dear to her heart - graveyards and tombstones. In the midst of the chit chat something triggered a memory with me, and I asked her if she'd ever heard about the guy in Massachusetts who was buried with six of his young wives, each of whom had somehow died in their 20's or 30's. She gave me about a five-second blank stare, then made me slowly repeat what I'd just told her - that six of this man's wives mysteriously died at a very young age, and now the whole group of them were buried alongside each other at a cemetery in Massachusetts. There's a boatload of questions a statement like that could lead to, but my wife followed it up with just one.

And we haven't been to see this grave ... why??

I didn't have a good why to respond with, so that's how two days later we found ourselves driving to the Bradford Burial Ground in Haverhill, to look for the grave of Nathaniel Thurston.

If you trust what's written on his epitaph, Thurston was a well respected member of the community who was involved in local legislature for many years, and not the type of person one would suspect of rubbing out a wife every few years or so when he got tired of waking up next to her. Taking everything at face value, he would appear to be just the world's unluckiest man when it came to the life expectancy of the women he wed.

For many years he was a
member of the Legislature,
was distinguished for his benevolence
and greatly lamented by
his friends

Unlucky indeed, for between the years of 1790 and 1808 six of Thurston's wives passed away, an average clip of one death every three years. I'm not looking for any of his descendants to come beating down my door with pitchforks, however, so rather than accuse the man of being New England's version of Henry VIII, let me simply present the facts of Thurston's curious love life as they happened:

1780 - Married Elizabeth "Betsey" Thurston, who died on November 25, 1790 at age 34.

1791 - Married Martha Thurston, who died on May 12, 1799 at age 32.

1799 - Married Huldah Thurston, who died on September 8, 1801 at age 24.

1803 - Married Clarrissa Thurston, who died on November 14, 1803 at age 36.

1804 - Married Martha B. Thurston, who died on July 27th, 1804 at age 25.

















1804 - Married Mary Thurston, who died on March 3rd, 1808 at age 27.









1801 was a particularly cruel year in the Thurston household, for not only is that the year wife Huldah died, but a son she and Nathaniel had passed away also. Benjamin Thurston was only 8 months old when he died on March 7th of 1801, just months prior to his mother's demise.

Between 1803 and 1804 was another flurry of activity, as Thurston was married three times and widowered twice in a period of just over 12 months. As a testament to whatever charisma he had going for him, as quickly as the man could bury one wife he somehow attracted a new one. Not only that, but the older he got the younger the girls were that he landed. Thurston was pushing 50 years of age when he wed wives 5 and 6, each of whom were only in their mid-20's at the time.

A cooling off period followed this sixth marriage to Martha B., and they remained a couple for approximately four years until she too died at 27. This was in 1808, and without skipping a beat the 54-year old Thurston was married for a 7th time to 25-year old Frances Fletcher in 1809. That is where the craziness finally came to a stop, as Thurston passed away in 1811 with wife number 7 still alive and well.

I'd bet my Jeep there's a whole lot more to this story, but I don't know how to investigate a 200 year old cold-case therefore it ends with Frances having done something none of the other wives were able to do - outlive Thurston. And as a result of that accomplishment Frances distinguished herself from the others in another way as well, she is the only wife who will not be spending eternity next to Thurston, alongside wives 1 through 6 at the Bradford Burial Ground in Haverhill Massachusetts.

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Unedited Group Photo