Legend has it that people have seen the chair rock and even a ghost of a young girl sitting in the chair. Others have seen glowing lights or orbs around the plot.
Her vacant chair. The grave marks the location of Pearl E. French, a child of the age of three who died of spinal meningitis in 1882. It is said that the little girl haunts her white marble grave, which is shaped to resemble a child’s rocking chair.
Pearl was the daughter of Edwin French and Emma J. (Leonard) French who previously lived in Taunton but at the time were in Boston. Edwin worked in the city as a newspaper type composer.
Legend has it that people have seen the chair rock and even a ghost of a young girl sitting in the chair. Others have seen glowing lights or orbs around the plot. The grave may be a reference to a popular poem by Richard Coe Jr. about the heartbreak of losing a child sharing the title of the inscription on the grave, “Her Vacant Chair.” Vera Lucille Johnson, Pearl’s cousin, who also died of meningitis, is the scroll stone monument to the right.
Mayflower Cemetery was established in the mid-1800s, with locals calling the old section, used between 1862-1962, “Potter’s Field.”
