At a lovely ceremony in the Danville Center Cemetery, located at the top of Danville on Dole Hill, two groups came together to honor one of Danville’s founding families–Aaron and Zuruiah Hartshorn. How they came to do so is in the story written below by Helen Staley, President of the Northeast Kingdom’s chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of Founders and Patriot’s of America. The other group represented was the St. J. de C. Chapter of the Daughter s of the American Revolution.
“Several years ago, Donna Gleason of Valatie, New York, requested from an associate member of the Danville Historical Society a picture of Zeruiah Hartshorn’s headstone. It apparently did not exist, all of which resulted in the search in the oldest Danville cemetery on Dole Hill.
“Phil Somers of Barnet found weathered pieces of the headstone with Aaron on one side and Zeruiah on the other. The old headstone lettering was determined by fitting the pieces together and filling in the gaps.
“We are deeply indebted to Phil Somers, not only for locating the Hartshorn headston remnants, but also for his considerable research, which can be found in a book of about 300 pages in the Danville Historical Society files. The book contains the following: 1)introduction 2) narrative of all generations 3) ancestral charts 4) newspaper articles 5) deeds 6) vital records 7) probate 8) miscellaneous: family genewalogies, town records, photographs, etc. 9) census records and 10) pension records.
“Donna Gleason located some of Aaron’s military and pension records. The local Disabled American Veteran’s Service requested and received a marble replacement headstone for Aaron. Fund and gift raising was provided by: the local DAV, the Hartshorn family, the Northeast Kingdom Vermont Chapter of the DFPA, the U.S. Veterans Administration, and “at cost” engraving of Zeruiah and two of their sones by Gandin Brothers of South Ryegate. This is what you see today!”
Aaron Hartshorn is credited in the Danville history Village in the Hills as selling the town the land for the green. Before he came to Danville, he served two months and 26 days with the Massachusetts company of Captain John Bacheller’s, and Colonel Ebenezer Bridge’s Regiment. When Aaron died at age 49, Zeruiah Blunt Hartshorn, widow of Aaron Hartshorn, applied for a Revolutianry War pension in Lamoille County, VT. She brought up their 10 children and died at age 100 years, 11 months and 11 days in Calais, Vermont.
After the ceremony, the group returned to the Danville Historical Society for punch and cookies.