Young Susanna and Willoughby Lynde

Susanna Lynde died on December 19th at 4 1/2 months of age just prior to Christmas in 1685. She was the first of ten children of Nathaniel and Susanna Lynde, who lived in a home on their land near the Long Island Sound shore somewhere between the Borough of Fenwick and Cornfield Point - no information exists which specifically pinpoints the location. The Lyndes are probably best known for deeding their Saybrook Point home - formerly the "Great Hall" home of Colonel George and Lady Alice Fenwick - to the fledgling Saybrook Collegiate School which later became Yale University when it moved to New Haven.

Of the ten children, only Susanna and the Lynde's younger son Willoughby died in their youth. Willoughby was seven when he died; his small marker (a footstone) is located immediately adjacent to a larger headstone marker in the adjacent Lynde plot (photo left). Willoughby's headstone, broken and unreadable, is located out of the picture to the left. The larger headstone marker, which is essentially unreadable, is known to post-date Willoughby's marker.

Although there are many monuments marking the graves of children who passed between birth and 5 years of age, Susanna Lynde's is unique because it is the oldest marker in Cypress Cemetery. In that Saybrook was originally settled in 1635, that would equate to approximately 50 years of burials without any remaining evidence of who or where those early burials occurred.