Ann AtLee

Almost all that is known about Ann MacIntosh Edwards AtLee begins with her family's eulogy. The Kalamazoo Gazette ran only a few local obituaries in the 1830s and 40s. There was no guarantee of even a short death notice. Ann Macintosh Edwards AtLee was a rare exception. Atlee was 23 years old and the wife of Samuel. She had lived in Michigan almost her entire life. Born on September 12, 1815, at Fort Fayette, Pennsylvania, her family moved to Michigan when she was only six weeks old. "Friends of the deceased are requested to assemble on Sunday morning at 10 o'clock, at the residence of her father, Col. Edwards, wherein the funeral will proceed in the Presbyterian Church, were appropriate services will be performed."[1]

Kalamazoo Gazette, June 2, 1838

The prominent notice reflected her family's political power. Her father, Abraham Edwards, was a member of the First Michigan Territorial Council and her husband, Samuel Yorke AtLee served as secretary of the Michigan Senate before moving to Washington, D.C.[2]

The death notice was more than just the mournful eulogy of a politically powerful family. It reflected the optimistic beliefs of spiritual rebirth that characterized the Second Great Awakening. It sought to create an example out of AtLee that others might follow. "In Mrs. Atlee, was strikingly exemplified, the power of Divine Grace, not only in the remission of sin, but in the abundant consolations of the Gospel, sustaining her under the afflictions and pains of long-protracted disease which she endured with lamb-like patience; and giving her the rich antepast of the inheritance of the blessed, to the participation of which she bore lively and repeated testimony, to her numerous relations and friends, and of the eternal fruition of which, she had not a doubt," the notice stated. "A memoir of the deceased, is in preparation, in which will be exemplified her peculiar characteristics, the transcendent happiness of the death-bed of the christian, and the paramount importance of Religion, to fit us for a happy resurrection, and the enjoyment of eternal life." It represented as softened touch to Calvinistic determinism as well as an example of ars moriendi (the art of dying) or the "good death."[3]

These beliefs came to dominate the American culture of death and dying in the nineteenth century. The ritual described in Atlee's obituary became more common. The living looked up on the dying for signs about the soul's afterlife. Were they content? How did they handle pain and suffering? Did they give any statements in their final hours? These rituals corresponded with changes to cemeteries. When Atlee died in 1838, there were already park-like cemeteries emerging elsewhere in the country and the world. Many more reflected the crowded cemeteries of medieval Europe and colonial America.[4]

Mountain Home Cemetery, Kalamazoo, 1883-1895, P-614, Kalamazoo Public Library.

Even in death, Ann AtLee followed the changing cultural expectations of death in nineteenth century America. In 1882, surveyors indicated that about half of the burials on West Street had been removed to other cemeteries. In the twentieth century, local lore exaggerated the number of removals. Atlee is one of only a few dozen people with a clear record trail indicating reburial in Lot 144 of Mountain Home Cemetery.[5]

Notes

[1]. "Died," Kalamazoo Gazette, June 5, 1838; Lynn T. Miller, Soldiers of War of 1812 : roster of soldiers of the War of 1812 who are buried in Michigan. (Ithaca, Mich.: Michigan Society, U.S. Daughters of 1812, 1940); Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/30754512/abraham-edwards: accessed October 24, 2024), memorial page for Abraham Edwards (17 Nov 1781–22 Oct 1860), Find a Grave Memorial ID 30754512, citing Mountain Home Cemetery, Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, USA; Maintained by ambs (contributor 46814643).

[2]. [Stephen D. Bingham], Early History of Michigan: With Biographies of State Officers, Members of Congress, Judges, and Legislators (Lansing, Mich.: Thorp and Godfrey, 1888), 247; "S. Yorke Atlee," SMU Libraries (accessed 9 December 2024), https://digitalcollections.smu.edu/digital/collection/civ/id/349/; "The Late Samuel Yorks Atlee," Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), September 4 1895.

[3]. Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (New York: Penguin, 2008); Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz, The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

[4]. Faust, This Republic of Suffering.

[5]. Robert L. Brewer, Kalamazoo’s First Cemetery, 1833-1862 (Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical Society, 1987), 51.

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