text: Unexpected photo opportunities | masslive.com
  on March 31, 2009 at 5:26 PM, updated March 31, 2009 at 6:00 PM
  I love it when stuff like this happen. You're out and about and just enjoying a really nice drive around the back roads, cow paths and lunar landscape that constitutes a ride through Western Massachusetts and BAM! You just run into the coolest things.
  No. I didn't hit anything with my car, but I did find a real mystery to solve. I love it when a photograph launches a thousand Google searches.
  We happened to be up and around Pelham this weekend when we came across this little out of the way graveyard that seemed like it had some photographic potential as we were zooming by in the Miata. Lovely thick moss and wonderful old stone walls, it was all very picturesque, so we pulled over and took a walk amongst the graves looking for some interesting bits. Boy. Did we find it.
  © Laura L. Merwin 2009 - all rights reservedWarren Gibbs grave marker.
  In case you can't read it (you can click on the picture and go to a larger view btw) it says:
  Mar. 23. 1860
  AE 36 yrs. 5 mos.
  23 dys.
  A real murder mystery in little Pelham, Massachusetts. Doing the required dozen or so Google searches mentioned earlier, it seems that Ms. Mary Felton was never arrested, nor tried for the murder of her husband but that didn't seem to stop Warren's brother William from making a case out of it. I can only imagine the town's reaction to the stone.. the gossip... the rumors... Poor Mary had to be mortified. It does amaze me though that she got such a bad rap, it honestly doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you probably shouldn't be eating oysters in Pelham, in March, pre-refrigeration-era, when it had to be at least a full day's travel by horse and buggy, to get the food to the table. No wonder poor Warren bit the dust.
  As the tale goes on, it seems that grave stone has disappeared several times over the years and the one that stands in the grave yard is a duplicate of a duplicate. The original stone was recovered having been dug up out of a dirt cellar of a home that reportedly belonged to poor Mary's family. I have no doubt that they would want the stone hidden. Now the original stone is kept at the Pelham Historical Society. I am really glad that they do maintain the duplicate in the graveyard though. It made for a great photographic adventure.