Corbett Family, A 2Oth Century Stone in Old Parish Cemetery

Herbert A. Corbett (1859-1903)

Herbert Andrew Corbett was born on November 24, 1859 in South Dedham. He was the son of David H. Corbett and Sarah P. McIntosh Corbett. David was born in Nova Scotia, Sarah in Stoughton.

In 1887, Herbert Corbett married Stella Augusta Gay who was born in Dedham on February 21, 1864. She was the daughter of Jarvis Gay Jr. and his wife Martha Kendall Gay. The couple had one child who died in infancy. That child was interred in the Gay family lot 95.

Like his father, Herbert A. Corbett was a blacksmith by trade. A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut. Its usefulness as a trade was beginning to wane by the turn of the twentieth century.

By 1900, the couple was living in Quincy and Herbert continued to work as a blacksmith.

Herbert A. Corbett died on April 16, 1903 in Quincy. The cause of his death was an intracranial tumor. He was interred in the family lot in Old Parish Cemetery. Stella Augusta Gay Corbett remarried and continued to live in Quincy. She passed away in 1944.

The Corbett family gravestone is a twentieth century stone with the tools of the blacksmith trade engraved on its face.