Weariness

Philo P. Evarts (d. 1860) has two gravestones at Cheshire Cemetery, side by side. The first is a simple white tablet with flowery script, most likely the stone placed on Mr. Evarts’s grave in 1860.

The second is a pedestal monument topped with a sphere. There are two inscriptions on opposite faces, Philo P. Evarts and Phebe R. Evarts (d. 1897), his wife, suggesting that this stone was placed after the death of Mrs. Evarts, thirty-seven years after the death of her husband.

PHILO P, EVARTS,
DIED
MAR. 21, 1860;
Aged 44 Yrs
& 9 months.
The tablet marker features the carving of an open book showing the words “There is rest for the weary.” An open book is often a reference to the Bible. Could the carved statement refer to Matthew 11:28, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”?

The there-is-rest statement takes on special meaning when we learn from the U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules that Mr. Evarts’s cause of death was “Suicide insane.”

U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules, 1860, Berlin Township, Delaware County, Ohio

Philo Evarts was his wife’s second husband. Phebe George’s first husband, Elijah Sackett, died shortly after their marriage in 1838. Phebe Sackett married Philo Evarts in 1840.

PHEBE R.
WIFE OF
P.P. EVARTS.
DIED
MAY 1, 1897
aged
78 Y’S 10 D.

Sackett-George, 1838, Delaware County, Ohio

Evarts-Sackett, 1840, Delaware County, Ohio

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Cheshire Cemetery, Delaware County, Ohio