Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856/Obituary

Obituary.

In Calcutta, March 27, of cholera, Mrs. Rebecca P., wife of Capt. Henry Reed, of ship Queen of the Pacific, aged 28 yrs. 6 mos., daughter of Jonathan D. Bosson of Chelsea; April 2d, Henry G., their only child, aged 13 months. Mrs. R. was a resident of Chelsea, and had once before accompanied her husband on a voyage to Calcutta. Of uncommon personal loveliness, she possessed a gentle and affectionate heart, the most engaging manners, and those winning traits of character which are sure to surround their possessor with strongly attached friends. In the fullness of health and the bloom of youthful beauty, a mother’s anxious solicitude and weary watchings over the illness of her child prostrated her, so that she fell an easy victim to the Asiatic scourge, and died in twenty hours after she was attacked. All the Americans in port were present at her funeral, the service being performed by Rev. Mr. Leslie, of the Baptist Church. Six days afterwards the mother’s grave was opened to receive the remains of her beloved boy. Mrs. R. was the first of a household band, consisting of father, mother and thirteen children, to be summoned to the spirit world, and upon this large circle in all its extended relations, as well as upon her doubly bereaved husband, the blow falls heavily.

What was thy life? a bright and beauteous flame,
Wherein, a season, light and joy we found;
But a swift sound of rushing tempest came,
It passed—and sparkless ashes strewed the ground.