Benjamin & Priscilla Fairbanks of South Dedham

Benjamin Franklin Fairbanks (1806-1874)

Priscilla D. Cushman Fairbanks (1808-1893)

Benjamin Franklin Fairbanks was born in March of 1806 in Dedham. He was the son of Abijah Fairbanks and Lavina Fairbanks (lot 25).

On October 21, 1827, Benjamin Fairbanks married Priscilla D. Cushman, who was born on November 23, 1808 in Kingston. Her parents were Daniel and Priscilla Bassett Cushman.

Between the years 1832 and 1848, Benjamin and Priscilla had eight children: Elizabeth, Maria, Caroline, Charles, William, Mary, Daniel, and Julia. Benjamin supported his family as a farmer and later, a laborer and teamster.

Benjamin F. Fairbanks died on March 13, 1874 of heart disease.

Following his death, Priscilla Fairbanks ran a boardinghouse at her home on Washington Street, at the junction of Walpole, a not uncommon practice for widows or single women. By the 1880 Census, her residence was home to five boarders and one servant, in addition to her daughter, Mary, son-in-law Lewis G. Stone, and their two children. Daughter Mary Fairbanks Stone died in 1881 and is interred in Old Parish in lot 80.

Looking south at the junction of Walpole St. and Washington St.

Sometime around 1885, Priscilla Fairbanks moved to live with her daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth C. Rhoads, on Cottage Street. According to the Norwood Advertiser and Review, “Mrs. Fairbanks was a member of the Universalist church, a woman of noble character, superior mind, industrious, ambitious, and upright, fitted for better things than was her lot always to enjoy.” She enjoyed fancy handwork and reading and “her mind was perfectly clear to the end” demonstrated by the fact that she planned her own funeral. “To her daughter she said, ‘I have tried to do right. If I have wronged anyone I hope to be forgiven.’”

Priscilla D. Cushman Fairbanks passed away on February 28, 1893 of paralysis and old age. She was 84. She was interred in lot 115 along with her husband.