One of the headstones in Cohoes' cemetery in Crescent, moved from the Cohoes City Cemetery on Columbia Street, Cohoes in 1896 or thereabouts, is that of Carlos B. Grout. At the top of the stone is an unusual symbol: a six-pointed star (hexagram), two points up, within a triangle. http://image2.findagrave.com/photos/2014/227/130659793_1408227185.jpg Findagraveforums.com user FairyLake thought it resembled the symbol of the Sons of Temperance. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KPd-faPYyr4/U_EihyMnflI/AAAAAAAABLw/Bf38SapUnxQ/s1600/sons%2Bof%2Btemperance%2Bsymbol.jpg The Order of the Sons of Temperance. Oshawa: C. T. White, 1851. http://archive.org/stream/cihm_93135#page/n3/mode/1up As it turns out there was indeed a chapter of the Sons of Temperance in Cohoes. The organization as a whole was still young when Carlos Grout died in 1848: "The organization called Sons of Temperance was brought into existence in the City of New York September 19, 1842, and consisted of sixteen members.” History of the County of Albany, N.Y., from 1609 to 1886. NY: W. W. Munsell & Co., 1886. 344. There were also chapters in Lansingburgh, Schaghticoke, Troy, Albia, Crescent, Albany, Watervliet, North Greenbush, Buskirk’s Bridge, Johnsonville, Valley Falls, Waterford, Schuylerville, Saratoga Springs, Corinth, Ballston, Mechanicville, Conklinville, Creek Centre, Galway, Jonesville, etc. Carlos B. Grout may have been an early enthusiastic member, or perhaps the SoT in Cohoes had a role as a burial society in addition to being a fraternal order concerned about alcohol. There was a Carlos B. Grout, son of Benjamin Grout and Orra Cummings, but I don’t know if it was the same person or not. The date of birth matches up about right, but Cohoes’ Carlos B. Grout died March 31, 1848 while the son of Benjamin and Orra reportedly got married in April 1848. Possibly the information about a marriage is wrong, or he was engaged but died, or perhaps they are in fact two different Carlos B. Grouts both born around the same year (though related somehow, one would guess). It's hard to know since Abner Morse didn't source the information. "[Grout,] Carlos Benj. [born] Oct. 14, 1823, m. April, ’48, Elizabeth, dg. of James Johnson, Chelsea, Vt” Morse, Abner. A Genealogical Register of the Descendants of Several Ancient Puritans, By the Names of Grout, Goulding, and Brigham. Boston, MA: H. W. Dutton & Son, 1859. 22. If the Cohoes Sons of Temperance are remembered at all today, it is for an event decades after Carlos B. Grout's death: "[Mark Twain] was at the Troy House, writing in the early hours of Saturday, 8 January. He had lectured in Cohoes, New York, about four miles north of Troy, on Friday evening. ‘Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands,' like other lectured sponsored by the Sons of Temperance and the Grand Army of the Republic, was poorly attended. It was a critical success, however. The Cohoes Cataract called it 'altogether a novel production, so different, in fact, from what people usually hear from the platform, that the audience was somewhat disappointed; but quite agreeably so, however, for all complained that the lecture was too short, notwithstanding the speaker occupied a full hour in the delivery of his queer, quaint and quizzical remarks’ ("Mark Twain's Lecture," 15 Jan 70, no page; "City Notes," Troy Times, 10 Jan 70, 3)." Fischer, Victor and Michael B. Frank, eds. Mark Twain's Letters. Vol. 4. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995. 8. With only about twenty graves visibly marked in Cohoes City Cemetery in Crescent out of over 949 graves known to be there, one wonders what else might remain to be learned if more headstones are found. Hopefully the city will do further work there this year (I’m told, secondhand, that they won’t). Chris Philippo