Gravesite 1865 Nancy Page

This marble gravestone has the inscription: “Nancy Page, widow of John D. Page, died September 1, 1865 ae [at the age of] 72 yrs 4 mos.”

The Clough-Thompson Family burial ground, dating from the 1800s, was located here. The farmhouse of John Winslow Emerson Thompson stood on the hill where the UNH Field House is now.

Nancy Page was born Ann Woodward in Scituate, MA in 1795. In Boston in 1833, she married John Page, a carpenter born 1785 in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. They lived in Durham and Boston, where he died in 1856. She returned to Durham where she lived with the Cate family, whose house was approximately where Putnam Hall stands now on Sage Way. Nancy died of tuberculosis in 1865 and was buried in the Clough-Thompson burial ground. The owner of the farm at that time was John Winslow Emerson Thompson. He was also the town clerk who signed Nancy’s death record. The grave of Nancy Page was tended by neighbors for many years, according to the Durham Historic Association (DHA) archives.

The property was sold in 1906 to the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, now the University of New Hampshire, shortly after it moved to Durham from Hanover. This farm was not part of the land willed to the college by Benjamin Thompson in 1891, but rather an additional purchase.

The Clough-Thompson graves and remains were disinterred and relocated to Lee’s Old Parish Cemetery (at Mast Road and Garrity Road) at the time of the property transfer. The grave of Nancy Page, who was not related to the Clough-Thompson family, was left in place.

In 1960, when her headstone was mapped by a NH DOT survey it was already in pieces and lying flat on the ground. The headstone later suffered vandalism, and around 1968 it was moved eastward to lie inside an existing fence, and was set in concrete to protect the fragments.

State law now prohibits most excavation and construction within 25 feet of a burial ground, so in 2018-19, in preparation for the construction of a new sidewalk along the south side of Main Street, the area of the gravesite was investigated to find out whether there were buried remains in place.

Archaeological investigations occurred, including Ground Penetrating Radar and then trench excavations by the archaeological team, at the gravestone location and at the nearby site indicated as the pre-1960 burial ground. Evidence was found that the grave of Nancy Page was likely under the earlier location of her stone. As a result, the decision was made to move the headstone back to its approximate 1960 location as verified by the archeological investigation. As part of the sidewalk project, and under the supervision of archeologists, the marker was reinstalled horizontally, in its raised granite frame for protection as you see it today.

Sources:

Town of Durham Planning Department, Durham Historic Association Archives, University of New Hampshire Campus Stewardship Office

May 2021