#21-2020. Tombstone. Wimsett Tombstone in Columbus Montana cemetery
Wimsett Memorial
Stephen and Sarah Wimsett are my husband, Leroy’s great great grandparents.
Stephen Wimsett and his wife, Sarah, emigrated to the United States from England in 1871. He settled first in Michigan but headed west to Beaverhead County, Montana and finally settling in Stillwater County, Montana in 1886. Stephen gained citizenship in 1889. He received a homestead patent on 20 April 1892.
Sarah died on 9 December 1905. She is buried at the Mountain View Cemetery at Columbus Montana. When her husband Stephen died on 14 March 1920. The headstones marking their graves are plain. But the family memorial tombstone is unique. It is likely that Stephen created the tombstone memorial for his wife.
A newspaper article on the sandstone headstone from the Billings (MT) Gazette of 2 June 2013.
Tales from the tombs
Gravesites offer glimpse into difficulty of early Montana life
…………..At the southwest corner of the town of Columbus sits the Mountain View Cemetery, filled with the graves of the towns earliest residents and on one side dotted with its newer ones. Many of them date to the early 1900s, as the town of Columbus began to grow. While there are more than 100 graves in the cemetery, about 30 of them stand out. Made from sandstone blocks pulled from a quarry north of town, the 31 grave markers are intricately carved logs and trees and were all created in the first 20 years of the 1900s. They range in size from a few feet to more than 12 feet tall, but all feature exacting detail in a very similar style. Most are either carvings of several stacked logs with a partially unrolled scroll bearing the name of the deceased or an upright dead tree trunk adorned with items such as anchors or clasped hands. According to the National Register of Historic Places, all of them were most likely created by one of two skilled Italian stone masons in the area, either Michael Jacobs or Pasqual Petosa. Jacobs managed the nearby quarry and eventually opened a monument business while Petosa worked at the quarry, likely stockpiling sandstone blocks, which he used to open his own monument company. While the log-and-tree-style tombstones can be found elsewhere in the United States, the Columbus cemetery has the highest concentration of them anywhere in Montana. The 12-foot-tall stump carved for the Wimsett family is also the oldest of the three large free-standing markers. "The earliest is the 1903 Wimsett tree stump, a massive and ornate marker that was carved in Columbus and later exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair," the historic register said. "...At about 12 feet in height with it's impressive array of carvings, the Wimsett tree stump appears overwhelming yet fragile within the cemetery."None of the sandstone carvings date past the 1920s, when both Jacobs and Petosa passed away, although their work can be found in other cemeteries through the state, including in the nearby Nye, Absarokee and Red Lodge cemeteries……..
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