Google's interpretation of the term Lonely Burial is the physical act of interring a deceased person in the ground without any attendees present at the graveside, or at a location that is isolated or unfrequented. It goes on to say the grave itself might be in a solitary, remote, or unmarked location, rather than within a traditional, well-visited cemetery plot and the individual may be unknown, unidentified, or have no available biographical details, leading to an unmarked grave or one with only minimal identification.
Well this burial is certainly in an unfrequented location, is unmarked (although I believe it could have been marked when first buried) and the individual is unknown and there are minimal details about the burial. So how do we know it is there? It is clearly marked on old historic maps. The earliest map I could find with it marked was in October 1901 it is a lone burial with only one person there.
I contacted the person who had it marked on the website/app Find a Grave (an app that I use frequently) to see what details they knew about the person. They completed their own research within two days and came to a conclusion about who they think it is. They believe it is a woman named Fanny Gange Ebden. She passed away in 1865 at age 47-48
While I agreed it could very well be this person (and a part of me still thinks it could be this person) But I just felt like it wasn’t quite right considering the circumstances that I already knew - which I’ll get into later. So I’ve looked into it further and believe there is another strong contender for who it could be.
First I wanted to learn more about lonely burials and was surprised to find several in the Wellington region including quite a few in the Hutt Valley. A lot (not all) of these lonely burials in the Wellington region however are marked with a memorial, including what I thought to be a really nice one in Glenside. The one in Glenside was for an early settler woman who died in the early 1840s and was buried in the area. The community and Wellington City Council who worked in partnership to design and construct the memorial didn’t know the exact location of the burial or who the woman was but they were able to find lots of other information including the consecration of the burial by Bishop Selwyn of the Anglican church in 1842
Another I came across was one in Upper Hutt for a young boy. It is known who is buried there but his plot is on private land so not accessible to the public. I was able to track down a relative who was very helpful to talk to. I asked why they thought this boy was buried there and why no one else was buried with him (I was thinking parents, siblings, other family etc) He was buried on the family farm but they weren’t sure why only he was buried there. Regardless his plot is marked and looking at photos of his memorial it really is a lovely little spot.
Another one is way out by Pencarrow Upper Lighthouse. This lonely grave is for 7 month old infant Evelyn Wood. Evelyn’s father at the time was the assistant lighthouse keeper and lived out there with his family. What a beautiful view but a very remote spot for her to be buried. I’m not even sure if most people who walk/ride out that way know she is there as there was nothing on the maps in the area, although you can clearly see her grave on google maps (if you zoom in)
Anyway moving on….
Going back to the lonely burial I was looking into I decided to try and talk to the current landowner to see if they knew anything about it. After knocking on their door I was able to talk to them (or at least my braver than me, husband did while I stood awkwardly to the side) and they even let us visit the site. They believed the person buried there may have been reinterred but I was still interested to find out who was (or had been) buried there. The landowner told us that they didn’t know much about who was buried there but they did have a kaumātua tell them that it was a young girl buried there. This was also what a lot of the locals had said in the past when talking about it.
The site itself was very interesting. When the current landowner moved in they said it was completely overgrown and covered in gorse but when they cleared the area they came across some wooden posts. The posts were still there but had been pulled out of the ground and were stacked neatly in a pile. Unfortunately the wood was starting to rot away but it was still easy to see four posts which had rebates in them (rebates in woodwork are 90 degree grooves or cuts to create a ledge for other pieces to fit into) These posts would’ve almost certainly been used to mark and surround the burial spot. It was an absolutely beautiful little area. Fantastic views over Wellington harbour and I could easily picture myself there on a sunny day sitting and reading whilst the world passed me by.
If you do find the location of this site I do ask that you please be respectful and don't bother the current property owner or enter their property without permission. While they were friendly to us they did mention they have been asked about it many times over the years and we got the impression they were rather tiresome of people bothering them about it.
So now to try and find who is potentially buried there. Land records said the first European settler for that land was William Ebden. He became a well known man and owned quite a lot of property and land. He came to New Zealand in 1841 with his mother and stepfather and several siblings. While in New Zealand he married Fanny Derry in 1848 William must’ve travelled back and forth between NZ and Australia because there is also a record of him marrying Elizabeth Cecilia Overton in Melbourne in January 1856 It is possible he may have still been married to Fanny at this time! I couldn’t find any divorce records nor could I find any death records for Fanny. William and Elizabeth went on to have a child who was born in 1857 Ruth Susannah Ebden. William, Elizabeth and Ruth came back to New Zealand in April 1862
After their wedding in 1848 Fanny seems to have disappeared. I couldn’t find any immigration records of her going to Australia (or anywhere else for that matter) with William or alone and I can’t find any official record of her death. There are however a few possibilities of her being back in the UK but as I said I can find no immigration records for her. Her father passed away in 1853 in England. Could she perhaps have gone to see him before he passed and then never left? There are some death records for Frances Ebden in the UK in the mid-late 1850s could one of these be her? One is very close to where her father passed away.
Meanwhile William, Elizabeth and Ruth settled in the Hutt Valley at Williams property where the lonely burial is. Unfortunately tragedy struck on May 10th 1863 and six year old Ruth passed away. I ordered her death certificate and it confirmed she was the daughter of William and Elizabeth Ebden and that she had passed away in the Hutt. She passed away from chronic bronchitis with dementia. While it may sound unusual for her to have dementia at such a young age, the term meant something quite different back then compared to today. It could quite likely have been illness-related, or simply a general decline in mental function. In some cases (and quite likely with Ruth) prolonged poor oxygenation from severe lung disease can worsen confusion and cognitive impairment so these two conditions may have been connected.
While it doesn’t give an exact location of her burial, saying that she died in the Hutt helps to narrow down her potential burial spots. Her death was registered by John Smith who at the time was a known court registrar. This gave no religious or spiritual preference with the family. Checking the Hutt Valley burial search, no record came up for Ruth (this doesn’t mean much as there are so many early deaths that are not recorded) I was however particularly interested in the records for the St James Church burial grounds. St James was also the burial place for William’s mother Susan Row who passed away in 1856 Although it would seem Ruth and Susan never met it would be a nice place for Ruth to go - with her grandmother. I contacted St James but they had no record of Ruth being buried there but that doesn’t really mean a lot. The current St James Church that stands is the 4th St James church so the records can differ a lot. As it was in 1863 when Ruth passed, the 2nd St James church was standing but sadly the church was barely used and had fallen into a state of disrepair.
So could it be Ruth in this lonely burial spot? Or could it be Fanny who seemed to just disappear?
Trying to think of other possibilities I looked into the family that purchased the land after William. John Chapman purchased the land from William on the 5th of July 1873 However John had been living on the land from the late 1860s and even called it Hope Farm. There were a few in John's family that could’ve been buried in this lonely grave but all of them also had records of being buried in other local cemeteries (although interestingly on the land deed between William and John in 1873 there was no mention of the grave and no marking of it on the map) John owned the land for several years before passing away when his son took it over. His son eventually sold it around mid 1900 to John Laird Morrison. I couldn’t find the title or deeds for the land transfer between these two but John Morrison did not own it for long and from what I could see no deaths occurred in his family during that short time. In December 1900 John sold it to the government and it became crown property. The land was then surveyed in 1901 which is where we see the first mention of the grave. The survey map gave me another clue.
On the survey map it was written ‘Reserve for Grave see F.B. 2290 pg 29’ F.B. in this situation stood for field book. Thankfully LINZ keep digital copies of a lot of these online so it was easy to track down and sure enough, there it was. A survey showing measurements of where the grave was and how big. There was also some text written in Te Reo Maori and a translation into English which said - This is the cemetery (burial place) of a girl, the child of an occupier (as told by the chief) killed by assault by bad, (hostile) people in the year 1865
To me this points towards Ruth but even then there is room for doubt. Yes Ruth was a girl and the child of an occupier (William) but her death certificate says she died in 1863 it also says she died from accute bronchitis with dementia. Accute bronchitis is not caused by assault (I’m no medical professional but fairly sure I’m correct in saying that) It would also explain why William seemed to leave the land in the mid 1860s and let John Chapman take it over. Although it doesn’t mention William by name there are many adverts in the paper in late 1866 for farming equipment and animals being sold by the proprietor on Hope Farm in the Hutt Valley.
Could it possibly be Fanny? Could Fanny have died and no record made of it? She was 30-31 years old when she married William in 1848 so that would’ve put her at roughly 47-48 in 1865 so certainly not a child and definitely not the child of an occupier, so I’m thinking perhaps not (but still possible)
Could it be someone that I’ve missed altogether? I looked into many different possibilities in the Ebden family (as William’s older brother had also lived on the land at one point and he had children already, could it have been one of them?) When John Chapman owned the land in the 1870s a young lady passed away at his residence on Hope Farm. She was the daughter of a neighbour however burial records indicate she was buried at Knox Presbyterian graveyard.
I personally am leaning more towards it being Ruth Ebden but there is certainly room for other possibilities. What do you think?
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