Tombstone in Durkee Brook came from Penacook cemetery

LACONIA — The tombstone lying awash in Durkee Brook, across Academy Street from Union Cemetery, got there from Woodlawn Cemetery in Penacook, but when and how it made its odyssey of some 20 miles remains something of a mystery.

The Daily Sun reported on the white marble monument's location on the floor of the brook on Thursday.

Tammy McKenzie, a local genealogist, found that the stone very likely marked the grave of Mary E, Boyce, the wife of Charles H. Colby, who died of kidney diease at the age of 74 on December 29, 1919. On New Year's Day 1920 she was buried alongside her husband, who passed away on March 29, 1898, in Woodlawn Cemetery in Penacook, an unincorporated place within the city limits of Concord and bordering Boscawen. .

Both husband and wife were born and raised in Canterbury, where they were married on December 18, 1861. Coilby worked as a section hand on the Boston & Maine Railroad while his wife kept house. The couple had two daughters, Rose and Grace. Five years after the death of her husband Mary moved from Canterbury to East Concord, where she died.

George West, who works with the cemeteries in Concord, confirmed yesterday that the couple lies side-by-side in Woodlawn Centery. He said that there is no indication that the grave sites have been vandalized. However, cemetery records indicate that in 1983 the original stones on the couple's plot were removed and replaced with markers flush with the ground.

The removal and replacement was done by the Laconia Monument Company, which is next to Durkee Brook at 150 Academy Street. Frank Shaw of the Laconia Monument said that the original tombstones Penacook would have been brought to Laconia and possibly placed on the banks of the brook to forestall erosion. If so, he allowed that Mary Boyce's stone could have washed downstream, recalling that in recent years there have been a number of severe storms leading to high water in Durkee Brook.

Shaw said that the company lacks the equipment to raise the tombstone from the stream bed, an operation he believes will require a backhoe. "It's not going anywhere," he remarked.