The cedars by the wall still weep.

Though many years have passed, there is still a sense of intense mourning about the place.
While William B. Beeson and his son Lewis H. have their final resting place within a wrought iron fenced plot in Silverbrook Cemetery, other members of the Beeson family were laid to rest behind the low stone wall that encloses the park-like setting of the Beeson Mausoleum.

The story begins not in Niles but in Pennsylvania, where Jacob and Judith married somewhere at the turn of the 18th century and parented four sons and a daughter, Phoebe. The sons were Jacob, William B., Job John and Strother M. Beeson.

The eldest son Jacob emigrated to St. Joseph in 1829, where he began a mercantile business. In 1832, he moved to Niles and started a store in a portion of what was Colonel Huston's Tavern.

Jacob left Niles for a period when in 1857 his activity in an extensive forwarding and commission business led to his appointment by President Buchanan as a custom house collector at Detroit.

Click here for the full article on the Niles Daily Star website

Published May 10th, 2008

You never know where the lives of those who rest within Silverbrook Cemetery will take us. This week, our research brings us to the front page of this very newspaper.

In the mid 1800s a newspaper known as the Niles Gazetteer and Advertiser was followed by the Niles Gazette and the Niles Intelligencer. In 1839, a Whig paper called the Niles Republican showed up on the scene.

Darius B. Cook was born in Litchfield, Connecticut in 1815. He began his newspaper career as a journeyman printer in New York City.

When he decided to move west, he got a job as a compositor in the offices of the Detroit Free Press until 1838 when he started out for Chicago. He travelled with an ox-team and an old Washington hand press in the wagon.

Click here for the full article on the Niles Daily Star website

Published May 24th, 2008

As with so many of the stories those who rest in Silverbrook tell us, the story of Kneeland Sweet is larger than the small raised stone designating his final resting place might suggest.

His heritage introduces us to a number of interesting places both as specific locations and in time.

Kneeland Sweet, son of Timothy, was born in Pompey, New York, Feb. 5, 1794.

The town of his birth had its own notoriety, as it was also the birthplace of Lady Randolph Churchill (Jan. 9, 1884), the adventurous mother of Sir Winston Churchill, and William George Fargo (May 20, 1818), founder of the Wells-Fargo Company and later mayor of Buffalo, N.Y. and President of the American Express company.

Click here for the full article on the Niles Daily Star website

Published June 27th, 2008

Genealogy research often uncovers as many questions as it does answers. So it is with this look at Isaiah Carberry.

The stone that majestically sits in Silverbrook Cemetery suggests some power and prestige. Its heavy base holds several layers of symbolism such as that we previously explored.

Some we can identify; others remain a mystery.

There is a magnificent draped urn atop the monument.

Cremation was an early form of preparing the dead for burial. In some periods, especially classical times, it was more common than burial. The shape of the container in which the ashes were placed may have taken the form of a simple box or a marble vase such as that depicted here, but no matter what it looked like it was called an "urn," derived from the Latin uro, meaning "to burn."

Click here for the full article on the Niles Daily Star website

Published July 12th, 2008