From Barbara Eckbreth, June 7, 2004:Alan and I (Barbara Eckbreth) went to the Old North Cemetery located at 1821 Main Street today, right across the street from the Sand Elementary School. It must have been quite a place in its day for it is still beautiful despite all the damage one sees to hundreds of the tombstones. Many of the "important" families of Hartford and surrounding area are buried there. Among the names one sees are Brainard, Colt, Bulkley, Goodwin, Pitkin, Bigelow, Danforth, Watkinson, and Griswold and House of Glastonbury fame. There are quite a few graves of soldiers there too, from both the Revolutionary War and I saw one from the French Indian War and dated 1807. Vandals have sadly removed the war markers that must have once been there.
There are several magnificent trees in the fence enclosed property. Two that come to mind are a has-to-be three hundred year old tulip tree and a at-least- three -hundred-year-old Copper Beach. The graves of James Reid and his wife Mary Wilkie, along with their son James Wilkie Reid and his wife Bessie Pierce Reid are all buried right next to this magnificant Copper Beach tree.
One just drives in through the gates of the cemetery on Main Street, stays on the macadam road and follows this road around a 90 degree bend in the road, drives straight until one reaches a grass street on the right, and turns at this intersection toward the copper beach tree where the graves are to be found. The Watkinson family plot is on the corner of this turn. The graves of James Reid and Mary Wilkie Reid, parents of James Wilkie Reid, and a smaller grave for Bessie and husband James Wilkie Reid are right in a row on the south side of the tree.
If you go to visit these graves, beware! There is poison ivy Alan tells me around the graves. I hope I haven't come home with a souvenir of our visit! The graves are not easy to read for there they are marked heavily with pollution and lichen. They need a good cleaning. They are happily intact.
After the visit to Old North, Alan and I went to 124 Huntington Street, Hartford, where Thomas Oakes is recorded as residing in the Ellis Island records.