The one killed in Oxford, painful to relate, was your sister Beulah.

This weekend featured many genealogical discoveries, several of which I plan to write about in due time. One bit of information uncovered this evening, however, left me feeling a need to share quickly.

While working on the Ellis family line of my tree, I finally found a missing piece that unlocked an entire other surname branch that I never knew as a connection. The Freeman family of Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The family is one I had some very cursory knowledge of as it is represented at one of my favorite haunts, Old Sturbridge Village — home of the Freeman Farm.

I reached out to a friend at OSV about my newly-uncovered connection to the Freeman family, and he in turn put me in touch with an OSV historian. In less than four hours on a Sunday afternoon, my initial e-mail to my contact resulted in a good deal of information from Tom Kelleher, whose official title is Historian and Curator of Mechanical Arts. Following up on Tom's information, tips, and leads, I came across a letter from Pliny Freeman — my 1st cousin 6x removed — to his son, Pliny Freeman Jr., dated 12 July 1835. The elder Pliny was still residing at his farm in Sturbridge, while his son had settled in Ohio. This letter carried with it the devestating news that Beulah, Pliny Jr.'s younger sister, had been tragically killed during a thunderstorm.

An excerpt from that letter:

On Sunday last, 5th instant, there were two deaths in Sutton and one in Oxford. Those in Sutton were Mr. and Mrs. King, ages 63 and 57. They were both killed at one flash and in the same room. The one killed in Oxford, painful to relate, was your sister Beulah. She went upstairs to shut the windows, as was supposed, and a flash of lightening struck the chimney and threw the top mostly off. Lyman was not at the house. One of the neighbors saw the lightning strike the chimney [and] saw the bricks falling. He with one other of his neighbors immediately repaired to the house. On entering they found her [in the] up chamber dead on the floor, lying on her face and her clothes on fire. The skin on her neck and shoulders was some torn and her clothes behind were very much shattered. (If you have the opportunity you may communicate this sad intelligence to your Uncle Samuel. It seems he and family have been afflicted with a great deal of sickness but not to them like this.)

It seems the lightening passed from the top of the chimney to the bottom of the cellar. The body of the chimney is so badly shattered that it cannot be used until it repaired and every room in the house injured. Tore off plastering, chimney pieces, ceiling broke a hole through the chamber floor, shivered one cross-sill in the cellar, and shivered some posts. It shivered a board of the floor directly under the foot of the cradle that the baby was sleeping in. The scene throughout looks gloomy. Both cases occurred about four afternoon, both houses on high land and in sight of each other and about one-and-a-half miles apart. The news came to us about eight that night. The funerals at four the next day. The funerals were attended in a meetinghouse in the village nearby. Mr. Gray of Sutton and Mr. Clark of Sturbridge attended the funerals. It was a melancholy and heart-rending sight to see three coffins in the meetinghouse at the same time. There was a large collection of people. Our family and several of Lyman's cousins from Holland attended the funerals.