MY RIVERSIDE CEMETERY TOMBSTONE
INSCRIPTIONS SCRAPBOOK PART IV
by Jonathan K. T. Smith
Copyright, Jonathan K. T. Smith, 1993

(Page 10)

A PUZZLE NEVER TO BE SOLVED?

The tomb pictured on this page, variously called a brick-cairn, breadloaf or covered wagon tomb, located on Lot 328 in Riverside Cemetery has been the supposed burial place for Lt. THOMAS EWELL of the Mounted Rifles, United States Army, a valiant man who served under General Winfield Scott during the Mexican War; he died of the wounds he sustained at Cerro Gordo, Mexico on April 18, 1847. Any inscription once on this tomb has been obliterated and/or carelessly removed, most probably when certain repair work was done on the brick-work of the tomb, some twenty-five years ago. One Jacksonian, one whom I have found reliable in other matters, has told me that he felt confident in his memory of having seen the name EWELL on this tomb before these repairs of sorts had been made. Another life-long Jacksonian whose father owned and operated a grocery-store on the street bounding the northern section of the cemetery, back in the 1930s, told me that he recalled having seen a small metal coffin inside this brick tomb when he was a youngster. The tomb was even then in such wretched disrepair that one could actually look into the tomb.

Captain Thomas M. Gates (1838-1922) reported in an article published in THE JACKSON SUN, in the year 1912, interestingly of the Mexican War veterans of Jackson, "Of this number of young men /those who went off to the war/ over 70 percent were killed or died with sickness in Mexico and their dust is now mingled with Mexican soil. Twenty-eight returned to Jackson, most of them emaciated from sickness and two were brought back in sealed metallic coffins and a beautiful burial service of the Episcopal church was read in St. Luke's Church by the same good man, Rev. Louis Jansen, that delivered to them perhaps the last sermon they ever heard. The writer /Gates/was only nine years old but remembers well the throng that entered and surrounded the church. Adjutant Wiley I. Hale and Lieut. Thomas Ewell were the two brought back to Jackson and after the services were over a large crowd followed the remains to the cemetery and after the coffins were lowered a salute was fired over their graves. Adjutant Wiley I. Hale's tomb can yet be seen but the resting place of Lieut. Ewell cannot be found…."

Captain Gates was writing of a personal memory, not folklore passed down to him. Had such a conspicuous brick tomb been built to cover or enclose the remains of Lt. Ewell, the old captain would at some stage become aware of that fact. He was a life-long resident of the city. He was a wide-awake observer about his hometown and its people. It seems unlikely that the remains of Lt. Ewell are buried below or within this brick tomb. It may contain the remains of Thomas D. CONNALLY (deceased by December 1851), whose wife, Fanny Connally's slab tombstone is literally crowded-up against the west end of the brick tomb. She died in July 1845.

I "contend" that Lt. Thomas Ewell's remains were buried in Lot 343, that of his uncle, William Stoddert's family, with whom Ewell lived much of his early life. This uncle died in 1839. This large lot has but one tombstone, that the flat slab tombstone of William Stoddert. The "stumpy" remain of another stone rests upright nearby. It seems unlikely, but not impossible, that the occupant of the brick tomb will ever be known to us or posterity.

(See my Riverside Scrapbook, Part I, page 30, for more about Thomas Ewell and his family connections in Jackson.)

 

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