The old photo at right is of an obelisk standing to memorialize the life of Charles Hyatt Richardson. He was born in 1830 at Sumter, South Carolina, and died at Byron, Georgia in 1886. Dr. Richardson was buried at Byron City Cemetery. Since I have a (very) distant connection to him, I poked around a bit in Charles's life and discovered a sad story regarding the death of his mother. Sophia Hyatt was born 27 March 1804, the daughter of Charles Hyatt. She married John Smythe Richardson 9 April 1827 in Providence, Rhode Island, and they moved down to South Carolina. Elizabeth Buford Richardson wrote about Sophia in her book A Genealogical Record of the Richardson and Buford Families (published 1906): She was delicate, but the change from the northern clime to this southern home agreed well with her; she took on flesh which made her even more beautiful. She was intelligent, cultured, and well read, and she kept up with the leading topics of her day. Although it was more than twen...
Telling the Tales of Tombstones