Clifford Belcher, Jr. was born on Oct 7, 1745 in Stoughton, Massachusetts to Clifford, Sr. and Mehitable (Bird) Belcher, the third of their seven children. He married Bettie Copeland on Nov 22, 1770 in Bridgewater, Massachusetts and they had three children. He marched on the Lexington alarm, the first battle of the American Revolution, on April 19, 1775.

Tragically, Clifford and his entire family died within a 2-week period in August, 1775: toddler Clifford III (age 2 yrs, 4 mos) on 12 August, father Clifford, Jr. (age 29) on 15 August, infant Samuel (age 7 mos) on 22 August, child Betty (nearly 4) on 25 August, and mother Bettie (age 24) on 26 August.

The death records don't provide a cause of death, but it may have been dysentery, as Sharon was one of the hardest hit towns in a lethal dysentery epidemic that summer, especially during August. "If ever there was a dysentery year in New England, it was the memorable year of 1775… Altogether it was one of the most fatal periods for children in colonial history… Of the more than twenty-five still unidentified but simultaneous epidemics, the worst were in Bellingham, Brimfield, Chelmsford, Medway, Plympton, *Sharon,* and Westford…

Writing to her husband about the sickness in her family, Abigail, wife of John Adams, vividly described the epidemic in Braintree. 'Some poor parents are mourning the loss of three, four, and five children; and some families are wholly stripped of every member…'"

~The Colonial Society of Massachusetts (https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/865)

NOTE: While the somber poem on Clifford's inscription (below) mentions his wife Bettie's death along with those of their three children ("there father and there mother two") and her burial in the same location ("there bodies here in graves do ly"), her headstone has yet to be located, either among those of her husband and children or with her mother's (who died 11 Days after Bettie). She is not buried in West Bridgewater with her father (who died in 1790). Sharon burial records dating back this far don't exist, but every indication is that Bettie was buried here in Chestnut Tree Cemetery with her husband, children, and mother. (I've reached out to the Sharon Historical Society multiple times since Aug 2023 by phone & by email to try to confirm but have gotten no response.)

~Nov 2023