It was such a small world at that time, in the America’s, I am pretty sure that Catherine would have had copies of Anne’s books, and may have been influenced by Anne’s view on raising children who were literate, compassionate to those less fortunate, and committed to a dynastic family. If she never married, I am guessing Anne’s views on equally passionate spouses, working towards domestic and public affection, were not view Catherine got to experiment with.

Another descendant wrote a book about the family a few years ago, In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness and Desire in an American Family. The author gave an interview and mentioned, among other things, the set-up of the family burial plot in western Massachusetts. From the interview:

WERTHEIMER: Somewhere around the beginning of the 19th century, the Sedgwick Pie came into being. I wonder if you could just tell us what that is and why it’s important.

Mr. SEDGWICK: The Sedgwick Pie is located in the back of the Stockbridge Cemetery. It’s a private graveyard that takes a very unusual shape. It’s a series of concentric circles of grave stones, all ringing a common pair of ancestors – Judge Theodore Sedgwick and his wife Pamela, who was the mother of all of his children. Those children, seven of them, are buried in a circle at their parents’ feet. And their children are buried behind them, and so on out it goes six generations to the place where I, ultimately, will go behind my father and mother on the eastern slice of this pie.

All the other graveyards, at least in Stockbridge, are oriented to the east, to the place of resurrection. But here, the graveyard is oriented towards these presiding parents as if they are the Gods here.

WERTHEIMER: So when the Sedgwick’s rise up what they see – that’s the joke, the old joke isn’t it? Is other Sedgwicks?

Mr. SEDGWICK: That is the old joke….

Here’s a guide to the graveyard if you’re interested in such things. (Sedgwick Family Plot.) You can see Catharine Sedgwick buried in B2, with Elizabeth Freeman next to her in B1.

There are only a few single women in the project. Off the top of my head they are Miss Sedgwick, Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, and Matilda Hoffman. We discussed Matilda Hoffman previously since she was sealed to Washington Irving sometime in the 1890s, but I just looked in NewFamilySearch (since Family Tree doesn’t seem to be operating correctly) and don’t see that any of the other three were sealed to anyone then or later.

One other famous, but slightly more distant, relative (1st cousin, once removed) of Catharine Sedgwick was Major General John Sedgwick, an American professional soldier with a Utah connection (almost)–he was a Major in the 1st Cavalry in 1857, and was ordered to join Col. Albert Sidney Johnston at Fort Kearney to become part of the Utah Expedition. However, before reaching Fort Kearney, Major Sedgwick received further orders to return to Fort Leavenworth to rejoin the rest of the regiment.

Rising quickly in rank during the Civil War, he was promoted to Major General on July 4, 1862, and was commanding the 6th Corps of the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May 9, 1864. Trying to rally his troops in the face of Confederate sniper fire, Gen. Sedgwick told them that “they couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” Those were, ironically, his last words–he was struck almost immediately in the face by a sniper’s bullet and died shortly afterwards.