Another Ohio Site--Lincoln Ellsworth's grave.
Episode: 69.
Site Number: 106.
Date Posted: 11 November 1998.
Location: Hudson, Ohio, USA.
Type: Grave.
Lincoln Ellsworth made important contributions to aviation in both the
Arctic and Antarctic. Along with Amundsen and Nobile he flew over the North
Pole in 1926 and with Hubert Wilkins made four Antarctic expeditions
between 1933 and 1939. In 1935 in the Polar Star, he and Herbert
Hollick-Kenyon were the first to fly across the continent, a feat not
repeated until 1956.
Ellsworth is buried in Hudson, Ohio, now an outer suburb to Cleveland. His
boyhood was spent here and he attended Western Reserve Academy, a prep
school with a lovely campus on the edge of town. On route 91 a few hundred yards away is the Markillie-St Mary's Cemetery where, in the far back
section, are a number of Ellsworth family graves and markers. The most
obvious is a large highly polished black granite, flat-topped, rectangular
monument with a bronze garland encircling the center vertical element. The
design seems to exude a vaguely Napoleonic feel.
The carved inscriptions read:
On the base, south side: ELLSWORTH
On the center vertical element: Eva Frances Butler | Beloved Wife of |
James W. Ellsworth | Born July 16th 1852 | Died November 3rd 1888
On the right (east) side of the south face: Julia Muirhead Clarke Ellsworth
| Born May 26th 1847 | Died November 3rd 1921 | Mary Louise Ellsworth |
Wife of | Lincoln Ellsworth
On the left (west) side of the south face: James William Ellsworth | Born
October 13th 1849 | Died June 2nd 1925 | Lincoln Ellsworth | Born May 12th
1880 | Died May 26th 1951
[There are no inscriptions or designs on the east, north or west sides of
the monument.]
A few feet to the north are five small markers, each with a carved
inscription as follows (reading from west to east):
1. Mary Louise Ellsworth | Wife of Lincoln Ellsworth
2. Lincoln Ellsworth | To Strive, To Seek | To Find and Not To Yield
3. Eva Frances Butler | In My Father's House | Are Many Mansions
4. James William | Ellsworth | His Life Was Like a Star | And Dwelt Apart
5. Julia Muirhead Clarke | Of Such Is The | Kingdom of Heaven
Antarcticans will recognize the quote from Tennyson's Ulysses on
Lincoln's marker; it often appears in connection with Scott and is carved
on the cross on Observation Hill above the Discovery hut.