.jpeg)
Eliphalet Fales, III (1780-1848)
Sibyl Sumner Fales (1782-1867)
Charlotte Fales Smith (1808-1864)
Harriet Fales (1812-1815)
Olive Fales (1806-1876)
Mentor Fales (1815-1893)
John Sumner Fales (1821-1897)
Eliphalet Fales, III was born on May 24, 1780. He was the son of Eliphalet Fales, Jr. (1743-1825) and Melitiah Everett Fales (1749-1825). Eliphalet Jr. and Melitiah Everett were first cousins. Eliphalet Jr.’s mother, Abigail Everett Fales, and Melitiah’s father, Eleazer Everett, were siblings, the children of John Everett (1676-1751) and Mercy Browne Everett (1679-1779) (lots 160a and 160). John Everett was the first Deacon of the South Parish Church.
On June 20, 1804, Eliphalet Fales, III married Sibyl Sumner, the daughter of George Sumner and Margaret Lewis Sumner, also of Dedham. Eliphalet and Sibyl had nine children, including three daughters named Harriet (one died just under 3 years old, the other was less than a year); the third, Harriet Newell Fales, lived to adulthood and married Benjamin Fuller of Sharon. Their other children were: Horace, Charlotte, Eliphalet Newman, Mentor, Olive, and John Sumner.
Eliphalet Fales, III was a farmer in South Dedham. He died on September 5, 1848 of dysentery. His wife, Sibyl Sumner Fales, died on November 4, 1867 in Walpole of old age. They were interred in Old Parish Cemetery alongside their children. There are two gravestones situated in the lot, both large marble stones.
One stone records the birth and death dates of Eliphalet III, his wife Sibyl, and three of their daughters. Charlotte Fales Smith, who married Seth Ellison Smith in 1828 and had four daughters of her own; Harriet Fales, who died on August 15, 1815, a few months before her third birthday; and Olive Fales. Olive never married and died on April 29, 1876 of paralysis. As inscribed on the marble stone, it was Olive “who gave this stone,” thus commemorating the family.
Nearby, also in lot 90, stands the reset stone of two of Eliphalet and Sibyl’s sons. Mentor Fales and John Sumner Fales. Both were farmers; neither married. Mentor died on July 12, 1893; his death was attributed to old age. John S. Fales died on September 18, 1897 of brain disease. He had been in poor health for several years. In 1972, local artist Harry E. Fraser was commissioned by the Norwood Rotary Club to sketch many of the historic homes in Norwood including that of Mentor Fales.
Another son, Horace Fales, and his family are interred in lot 46 of Old Parish Cemetery.
Finally, son Eliphalet Newman (1819-1897), known as Newman, married Lucy Bullard Weatherbee in 1845. They had 8 children including Frank Aldrich Fales (1848-1926). In 1877, Frank Fales purchased the grain and feed business of William Fisher; in 1880, he built a large complex on Railroad Avenue from which he ran an extensive business in flour, grain, meal, feed, hay, and similar commodities. He was elected to Norwood’s Board of Selectmen in 1882 and held that position for 20 years. He also represented the district in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1886-1888 and again from 1900-1902. Extremely well known and thought of in Norwood, he lived in a handsome house at the corner of Nichols and Winter Streets. At some point, Eliphalet Newman, his wife and children, who had been interred in Old Parish Cemetery in the Fales lot 90, were moved to Highland Cemetery where Frank A. Fales and his wife, Jennie Train Fales, are also buried.
The two large gravestones belonging to the Eliphalet Fales III family in Old Parish’s lot 90 had been toppled. This spring, 2022, Old Parish Preservation Volunteers reset and cleaned these stones. They now stand at the top of the hill overlooking what once was the site of grandson Frank A. Fales’s thriving business.
