This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Doolittle, Chapin Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/4EB.2ACE/1007.2 Message Board Post: Nancy, I never got back to you about this. While I did get up the region last May, I did not get a chance to get to Northfield. However, I have found the following from History of the Town of Northfield, MA (available on Ancestry.com): Tombstone inscription: In memory of the Rev. Mr. Benjamin Doolittle, First Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northfield, who died Jany. ye 9, 1748, in the 54th year of his age, and 30th year of his ministry. Blessed with good intellectual parts, Well skilled in two important arts, Nobly he filled the double station, Both of a preacher and physician, To cure men's sicknesses and sins, He took unwearied care and pains, and strove to make his patient whole, Thorough in body and soul. He lov'd his God, lov'd to do good, To all his friends vast kindness show'd, Nor could his enemies exclaim, And say he was not kind to them. His labors met a sudden close, Now he enjoys a sweet repose. And when the just to life shall rise, Among the first he'll mount the skies. The same book goes on to describe the fate of his widow, Lydia Todd Doolittle. She married twice after he died, including a late-in-life marriage when she was 80. She survived that spouse as well, and was always known as Madam Doolittle. She died 16 Jan 1792 in Northfield. The history does not indicate where she was buried, but if you don't find her next to Benjamin, she may be buried under the name Chapin (the surname of her 3rd husband). Here's a quote about her from the Northfield history: "It is said that she possessed great mental as well as physical ability, that she received an unusually refined culture, before her first marriage, and ever after had the privilege of that class of society, calculated to increase it. My impression, from what I have heard through those who were well acquainted with her, is that her moral and religious character was fully equal to her other attainments. She had been a school teacher before marriage, and in her old age she devoted much of her time to the instruction of her numerous grand-children, retaining her faculties to the last. Her death, in her 92nd year, was occasioned by a fall, while taking one of these children from a table upon which it had climbed..."