by Heather Mabee, Vice Regent of the Saratoga DAR Chapter 

On a sunny, Sunday, July 1 afternoon, Daughters of the Revolution (DAR) from three states came together in the Ireland Street Cemetery in Chesterfield, MA to honor John Halbert. The Revolutionary War patriot and Chesterfield native served as a sergeant in Capt. Robert Webster's Company of Minutemen, and as a lieutenant in Capt. Bonney's Company, Dickerson's Regiment, during the American Revolution.

Halbert's grave had gone unknown and unmarked until late last year when his fourth great-grandson Douglass Mather Mabee of Saratoga Springs, NY with his wife Heather, member of the Saratoga Chapter, visited Chesterfield looking for his ancestors' resting place.

The First Resistance Chapter of Pittsfield, MA; Mary Mattoon Chapter of Amherst, MA; Betty Allen Chapter of Northhampton, MA; and Battle of Shallow Ford Chapter of Winston-Salem, NC joined the Saratoga Chapter to pay tribute to the Mabee's revolutionary ancestor. 

"We came up here about seven years ago looking for the cemetery where John Halbert was buried. We found his parents and his wife, but there was no marker for him," said Mabee.

Halbert's parents, Thomas and Margaret were buried in the 1700s, and were blackened with such an age. "We very carefully scrubbed the monuments with snow and hairbrush and tried to straighten them out a bit," Mabee continued. 

It was then that Mabee decided to get a headstone made for his ancestor. Working with Cemetery Superintendent Bill Jolly and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Mabee had a gravestone made and installed at the Ireland Street Cemetery last summer. "We are pretty certain he is buried in this cemetery, but this may not be the exact site." 

Mabee is president of the Vermont Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, Deputy Governor of the Vermont Society of Colonial Wars and a member of the New York Sons of the American Revolution Saratoga Battlefield Chapter. 

Spending a year in preparation with the local town persons, the show of colonial representation included members of the 2nd Continental Artillery from Fort Edward New York; the Massachusetts Sons of the American Revolution Continental Color Guard; guest fife player Yonna Osborne of the Sudbury Ancient Fyfe and Drum Companie; and Mabee and Chesterfield town historian Dee Cinner gave a brief history of Halbert's life at the grave site. A bell was rung 13 times to represent the 13 colonies, musket fire belched smoke into the air and a field cannon thundered its presence throughout the cemetery.