One of these mornings Anne Morgan Ober was missing from the group on Snake Hill. Nobody was concerned. She was 9 months pregnant and could do things like miss a Sunday morning get together.
The baby was being born, her sixth child, to be named Thomas. She knew as soon as she saw him that his life would be hard, but that he would leave a legacy for the world.
Thomas Ober had seven siblings, including the twins Johannah and Johathan. He was married at 22 to the beautiful Abigail Pitman, who was born in the town adjacent to Beverly, in 1740.
Thomas and Abigail had twelve children. They named one Hezekiah after Thomas's father and brother. And another Andrew, meaning a strong man, after the brother of Simon Peter, the Apostle of the Lord.
The story of Andrew is the tragic one. Born in 1754, in Beverly, married in 1797 to Susanna Gale, and had a beautiful child Lydia Ober in 1801, right after the turn of the century. Nothing could be better. Until Lydia got sick. At just 5 years old, Lydia died quietly on a cold day in April of 1806.
Five months before the death of their beloved child, they had another. They named her Lydia as well, in an effort to carry on the life and soul of the child they had lost.
Lydia met an honest and good man named Col. Ezra Batchelder. He loved her instantly and pursued her in such a beautiful romance that it could only have been the hand of the Master himself. They were married on Snake Hill on the 20th of June, 1826. Their four children were everything they wanted and more.
Unfortunately, the sickness that took Lydia's sister of the same name latched onto Ezra's Lydia at the age of 36 and ended her life. Colonel Ezra was heartbroken. Shattered. His children thought he was going to waste away in sadness.
Until he met Elizabeth Smith, who helped him heal and showed him that he didn't have to be alone. He married her at the urging of his children, feeling that Lydia wouldn't want him to be alone.
They were a perfect couple. But tragedy stroke again. Elizabeth was killed in an accident. Everyone I love dies! Ezra must have thought.
Seven years later, he married again, to Harriet Etheridge who stayed with him until he died in 1876, in Beverly Massachusetts, where his grave can be found today.