Everett School Master, Chester Comey, Sarah & Children

Chester H. Comey (1832-1881)

Sarah D. Rich Comey Pevear (1835-1907)

Frank Holbrook Comey (1859-1859)

Louisa Greenby Comey (1862-1867)

Philip Robinson Comey (1871-1872)

Chester Holbrook Comey was born on February 22, 1832, in Foxboro, Massachusetts. He was educated at Pierce Academy in Middleboro, and at Bridgewater Normal School, graduating from there in the class of 1852.

On August 27, 1855, he married Sarah D. Rich in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Sarah was born on June 6, 1835. The couple had four children, only one of whom (Charles Rich Comey, born in 1856) reached adulthood.

The Everett School once stood on the site of today's Norwood Post Office

Chester Comey was the Everett School master in South Dedham from 1857 through July, 1863. The family left South Dedham in 1869.

Comey family plot ca. 1880 in Old Parish Cemetery prior to Chester Comey's death

Three of the couple’s children are buried in Old Parish:

Frank Holbrook Comey was born on May 25, 1859; he died on September 14 that same year after a bout with dysentery. Louisa Greenby Comey was born on April 2, 1862; she died four years later on September 1, 1867 also due to dysentery. Phillip Robinson Comey was born on November 2, 1871. He passed away a little more than 10 months later on September 24, 1872 of cholera infantum.

In 1880, Chester and Sarah were living in Boston and he was an agent for a fire and life insurance company. He died on March 31, 1881, in Cambridge at the age of 49 from septicemia. He was returned to Norwood to be buried in Old Parish Cemetery with his children.

Sarah D. Rich Comey later remarried Mr. W. E. Pevear, who predeceased her as well. Sarah Rich Comey Pevear suffered from dropsical affections (edema); she died in Cambridge on July 10, 1907; she too is buried in the family lot, although there is no inscription.

Chester H. Comey with the gravestones of his children Frank and Louisa in 2020.

At some point vandals broke Chester Comey’s stone and scattered those marking his children’s graves. His stone and those belonging to Frank and Louisa were repaired and set in their proper place in 2020 by the cemetery department and volunteers.

In April of 2023, the small marble stone belonging to Philip Robinson Comey – nicknamed Phillie – who was only 10 months old when he died, was recovered from another lot in the cemetery. On April, 2023, the marker was returned to its proper place in the Comey family lot.

The Comey gravesite with all three of Chester and Sarah Comey's children as restored by OPPV in 2023.

Philip (Phillie) Comey's stone restored to the Comey plot in April, 2023 with his parents and siblings.