Special thanks to the Historical Society of Lee, and particularly Kevin Shenefiel, for research and assistance in piecing together this interesting slice of history.
A few years back our family was returning from a camping trip one Sunday afternoon. Camping with two young kids is a wonderful way to spend the weekend, but it is not a relaxing one. After two full days of swimming, fishing, and late night fires, I couldn't decide what I needed more desperately, the coffee maker or the shower.
That's when we drove past this curious turnstile gate at the entrance to an old graveyard. It was the kind of thing that would normally have us turning the car around for a better look, had it been just my wife and I on an afternoon drive. So we did what any reasonable people would do in our situation - we dropped the kids off at home, quickly unpacked, then drove back to the cemetery to explore it.
This was not too large of a graveyard, and we had wandered through most of it without finding anything unusual, when toward the southern side we saw a curious and out of place boulder. It was the kind of rock someone might plop in their front yard as decoration, but with a short path leading up to it. At the head of the path was a Town of Lee historical marker.
Several gravestones lined the path to the boulder, and there we found the grave of Elizabeth Burnham, explaining the presence of the stone and suddenly making our whole trip worthwhile.
ELIZABETH BURNHAM
Aet 23
Fatally shot by Indians in Durham. May 22-24 1721
fell upon this boulder which
still shows the stains of her blood
Hers was the first burial here.
These stones were placed at
her grave by
S. Millett Thompson &
John J. Bunkey 1907
My wife is a fan of everything morbid, and at the mention of blood still showing on the rock she gave it the kind of inspection that would've had NCIS taking notes. But of course this was written almost 200 years ago, and whatever blood once stained it has long since washed away.
This was a great find, but it left us with more questions than answers. I back-burnered the info for a few years, but after coming across it recently I wrote to the Historical Society of Lee and asked what they could tell me about Elizabeth Burnham and the rock.
I received a very nice reply thanking me for my interest, saying there was a lot of conflicting information about the story, and that one of their researchers would put together some info and send it my way. Two weeks later I received three pages of notes and references, and with those plus a few more tidbits I found we have a couple variations of the following story.
Born in a time of ongoing skirmishes between Native Americans and early settlers, in 1724 Elizabeth Burnham was returning from church with fiance George Chesley. The two were attacked by Native Americans, with Chesley dying immediately and Burnham dying four days later. This information comes to us from church records of Reverend Hugh Adams, who when lamenting deaths within the church's congregation over the prior week, noted that:
In the evening by the indians was killed by a shott (sp) in his head poor George Chesley and Elizabeth Burnum was wounded."
"May 27, 1724, Elizabeth Burnum, who was wounded by the indians the 24th, the day George Chesley was killed, the evening before she died I baptized at her penitent request.
And in a subsequent entry regarding baptisms for the congregation, Rev. Adams followed up with:
This story is reiterated in subsequent writing, including The History of New Hampshire by Jeremy Belknap, who says of Native Americans on May 24, 1724:
On Sabbath day they ambushed the road at Oyster River, and killed George Chesley, and mortally wounded Elizabeth Burnham, as they were returning together from public worship.
And in the Indian Wars of New England, Volume 3, by Herbert Milton Sylvester, the following is said:
May 24, 1724, Sunday, the savages ambushed the Oyster River trail. George Chesley and Elizabeth Burnham were making their way home from church. The hidden savages killed the man and mortally wounded the woman.
Even though the above corroborates Rev. Adams records, already there are questions about the story. Was her last name Burnham, or Burnum? Did the attack take place on a road, or a trail? Also, where does the bloody rock come into play with all this?
A more descriptive account that includes the origin of the rock comes from A History and Description of New England, General and Local, by Austin Jacobs Coolidge, John Brainard Mansfield. In speaking of the Indian wars, they say:
Among the traditions is one of a Miss Randall, who was betrothed to Thomas Chesley of Oyster River, and was about to be married. She was returning from Oyster River falls one day with a party of friends, when they were surprised by Indians. She tried to escape, and ran towards a barn standing near, for refuge; but was shot just as she was going into it, and fell across a stone, where she soon bled to death. The stone is preserved; and it is said, that, when a heavy rain falls upon it, her blood-stains can be clearly seen.
Now we know about the rock, but here's where we run into all sorts of other problems. George Chesley is now Thomas Chesley, Elizabeth Burnham is referred to as a Miss Randall and is said to have died on the boulder instead of four days later, and rather than returning from church, the pair were leaving a gathering of friends by the falls of Oyster River.
Another telling in Historical Memoranda Concerning Persons and Places in Old Dover N.H. John Scales, gives a similar account of Thomas Chesley and Miss Randall, with the added details of how the stone began its journey to where it stands today:
(Miss Randall) tried to escape, and ran towards a barn that stood near, with the hope of hiding herself, but was shot just as she was going into it, and fell across the stone at the door, where she soon bled to death. That stone has since been taken up to Ephraim Bunker's farm, and it is said that when there is a heavy dew the blood stains can still be seen upon it.
Confusion is added by saying that Chesley survived the attack, gave chase, killed 11 Indians before dying himself, and that all this took place in the year 1708:
Mr. Chesley was greatly grieved at her death, and declared he would spend his life in fighting the savages: he took his gun and started out: he soon came upon a party of twelve Indians and the fight began: when it was ended he had killed eleven of them, single handed, the other escaped. It is thought Chesley was afterwards killed by the Indians near Oyster River. He was dead in 1708, leaving a son Samuel who was born in 1691; Samuel chose his uncle George for his guardian, 7 June 1708.
As an aside and as another potential source of confusion, we also have another George Chesley being ambushed and killed in 1710. In The Ancestry of J.G. Williams & Ursula Miller by Jim Schneider & Holly Rubin, we are first told the original story of George Chesley in 1724, but cautioned us not to confuse him with an earlier victim of the same name:
George Chesley, who was killed by Indians on his way to mill, 8 June 1710, leaving widow, Deliverance.
When you boil all this information down, we end up with two distinct versions of the same story. One says that George Chesley and Elizabeth Burnham were attacked May 24th in 1724, with Chesley dying on the spot and Burnham succumbing four days later. The other has Thomas Chesley and Miss Randall being attacked in 1708, with Miss Randall dying across the rock and Chesley being killed soon after giving chase.
Which story is to be believed, or is the truth maybe even a blend of the two? I'm a big fan of history, but that doesn't make me an historian, so rather than make my own uneducated guess I'll just lay out the facts I have read, then invite you to visit the stone for yourself and draw your own conclusion.
Elizabeth Burnham's grave and the memorial stone are located in the Old Parish Cemetery, at the intersection of Garrity and Mast Roads, in Lee New Hampshire.
