In the northeast section of the Cemetery is a dark stone, neatly carved with an ornamental border, sacred to the memory of Margaret, the first wife of Benedict Arnold, who died on the 19th of June, 1775, while her husband was upon Lake Champlain. Her maiden name was Mansfield, and by her Arnold had three sons. She was thirty-one years old when she died. She is represented as a woman of the most fervent piety, exalted patriotism, gentleness of manners, and sweetness of disposition. These qualities are powerful checks upon unruly passions, particularly when exerted in the intimate relation of husband and wife. Had she lived until the close of the Revolution, far different might have been the fate of her husband, for there is little doubt that his resentments against Congress and the managers of military affairs for two years previous to his treason were fostered
* Mr. Barber gives the following translation: "David Humphreys, doctor of laws, member of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, of the Bath [Agricultural Society] and of the Royal Society of London. Fired with the love of country and of liberty, he consecrated his youth wholly to the service of the republic, which he defended by his arms, aided by his counsels, adorned by his learning, and preserved in harmony with foreign nations. In the field he was the companion and aid of the great Washington, a colonel in the army of his country, and commander of the veteran volunteers of Connecticut. He went embassador to the courts of Portugal and Spain, and, returning, enriched his native land with the true golden fleece.* He was a distinguished historian and poet; a model and a patron of science, and of the ornamental and useful arts. After a full discharge of every duty, and a life well spent, he died on the 21st day of February, 1818, aged sixty-five years." To complete the brief biography given in this inscription, I will add that Colonel Humphreys was born in Derby, Connecticut, in 1753, and graduated at Yale College in 1771. He soon afterward went to reside with Colonel Phillips, of Phillips's Manor, New York. He joined the Continental army, and in 1778 was one of General Putnam's aids, with the rank of maior. Washington appointed him his aid in 1780, and he remained in the military family of the chief until the close of the war. For his valor at Yorktown, Congress honored him with a sword. He accompanied Jefferson to Paris, as secretary of legation, in 1784. Kosciusko accompanied them. He was a member of the Legislature of Connecticut in 1786, and about that time lie, Barlow, and Hopkins wrote the Anarchiad. From 1788 until he was appointed minister to Portugal, in 1790, he resided with Washington at Mount Vernon. He was appointed minister plenipotentiary to Spain in 1794; married the daughter of a wealthy English gentleman at Lisbon in 1797; returned in 1801, and for ten years devoted his time to agriculture. In 1812 he took the command of the militia of Connecticut. His death was sudden, caused by an organic disease of the heart. His literary attainments were considerable. Besides several poems, he wrote some political pamphlets; and in 1788, while at Mount Vernon, completed a life of Putnam, a large portion of the material of which he received from the lips of the veteran.
* This is in allusion to the fact that Colonel Humphreys was the man who introduced merino sheep into the United Stales, he sent over from Spain a flock of one hundred in 1801.
Arnold's Disaffection.—Dr. Eneas Munson.—Death of Colonel Scammell.—His Epitaph by Humphreys.
by his intercourse with the Tory friends of his second wife, Margaret Shippen, of Philadelphia.
