Elizabeth Watson, Wife of Joseph Long Johnson, Whitby, North Yorkshire

Elizabeth Johnson, Wife of Joseph Long Johnson Gravestone
St. Mary the Virgin's Church Cemetery
Whitby, North Yorkshire
(by permisson of Charles Sale, Gravestone Photographic Resource

I am happy to present to you today a photo of the gravestone of Elizabeth Johnson, wife of Joseph Long Johnson, in St. Mary the Virgin’s Church Cemetery in Whitby, North Yorkshire. This was kindly provided to me by Charles Sale of Gravestone Photographic Resource, and is reproduced here with his permission. (Thank you, Charles).

I believe this to be the oldest gravestone of which I possess an image from my direct lineage in England. We can know that it is Elizabeth because you can see that she is the “wife of Joseph Long Johnson”, although there is little else that is legible. It is possible that others are buried with her, but so far, we have no evidence of this.

This is what I know about  Elizabeth Johnson, nee Watson, who was my three times great grandmother. According to the 1841 census, she was born about 1796 in Yorkshire. She married Joseph Long Johnson on May 2, 1824 in Whity, North Yorkshire. She had at least six children: Sarah, Mary Ann, Joseph, Elizabeth, Benjamin, and Thomas Henry. She died in the second quarter of 1843 In Whitby and, as mentioned, was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary the Virgin’s Church, which was Anglican.

St. Mary the Virgin Church
via Wikipedia Commons
from geograph.org.uk author Tom Richardson

I mentioned Elizabeth in a previous blogpost, Marlow Line: Joseph Long and Joseph Long Johnson in the Newspapers, and stated there that her mother was Ellis Watson. I no longer believe that this is so. This is because the Elizabeth Watson who was the daughter of Ellis Watson had a baby named after her stepfather, Francis Fishburn, a year after our Elizabeth married Joseph Long Johnson. The baptism record of the baby gives the mother as Elizabeth Watson, and mentions no father. I believe it is unlikely that this could be our Elizabeth, who was a married woman at the time, particularly as the child, born May 24, 1825,  would have to have been conceived after Elizabeth’s marriage.