Pond and Day Families in Old Parish Cemetery

Martha Sumner Pond Day (1822-1902)

Charles T. Pond (1816-1846)

Ebenezer C. Day (1816-1873)

Martha Sumner was born on February 15, 1822. She was the daughter of Moses Sumner (1800-1862) and Catherine Gay Sumner (1803-1899). She was the eldest of three children.

Martha Sumner married Charles Thurston Pond on November 7, 1841. Pond had been born on June 21, 1816; his father was Thurston Pond and his mother was Susannah Kingsbury Pond. The family lived in nearby Walpole. Charles and Martha Pond had one child, Charles Edwin Pond (1842-1901).

Charles T. Pond was a currier of leather. Currying leather was hard manual labor that required great skill. A currier would often work on a variety of hides including ox, cow, calf, goat, sheep, pig, and deer. After the tanning process, the currier would dress, finish, and color the tanned hide to make it strong, supple, and waterproof. After currying, the leather would be passed on to tradesmen who made saddles, bridles, shoes, and gloves.

At the age of 29, Charles Thurston Pond died on February 6, 1846 of brain congestion. 

OPPV repaired and restored Charles T. Pond's stone.

Just over a year later, on February 13, 1847, Martha Sumner Pond married Ebenezer Colburn Day, also of Walpole. He had been born on September 24, 1816. Martha and Ebenezer had four daughters: Ellen, Sarah, Julia, and Mary Faustina. Only four years old when his father died and five when his mother remarried, Charles E. Pond lived with the family as well. He later became the town treasurer. He passed away in 1901.

Ebenezer C. Day was also a currier. He died on August 3, 1873, a month shy of his 57^th birthday. The cause was listed as paralysis. He may well have had suffered a stroke which left him debilitated before his death.

Martha Sumner Pond Day died on August 18, 1902 of a cerebral injury. She had been in failing health for some time, but had had no serious illness. A few days before her death, she fell and hit her head. After that blow, it was believed that the concussion brought on an apoplexy and was only conscious at intervals. She died at her home on Nahatan Street where she had lived for more than fifty years.

Martha Pond Day home site at the intersection of Nahatan & Maple Sts. in 2025.

In an obituary, the Norwood Advertiser & Review stated that, “Mrs. Day was a quiet, domestic woman, greatly attached to her family and her home, a good wife and mother, a kind neighbor and friend. By all who knew her well she was deeply beloved and respected. … Her calm, beautiful and quiet life will be greatly missed by those she has left behind.”

She and both her husbands are interred in the Sumner family lot. Within that lot, Charles T. Pond has a separate stone. It was created by carver Alpheus Cary (1788-1869), a well-known and highly skilled artist who was one of the original proprietors of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge in 1831. He has many signed stones in that cemetery and in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston and is often placed in a category above most stonecutters.