``Here Lyeth the Body of...`` Col. Joshua Chandler who, along with Sarah Grant and Elizabeth Chandler, his daughter, were ``...Shipwreck'd on their passage from Digby to St John on the Night of the 9th day of March 1787 and Perished in the woods...``. According to his monument, which can not be read, it is written on the last line that he perished in the woods on the 11th day of March. This monument, along with many others in the Botsford family plot, was renovated around 2009. According to W. C. Milner`s 1934 The History of Sackville, "This was the 9th of March, 1787. CoI. Chandler, his daughter Elizabeth and others finally got ashore. But they were miles from any dwelling and the weather was severe. It is said that he urged his daughter to leave him and make her way to some house, but she refused to leave her father. He then climbed a high point of the rocks for a look-out, from which being so benumbed with cold, he fell and soon died. The others, his daughter and Mrs. Grant, after wandering about in the woods, perished on the 11th of March, 1787. Their bodies were found and carried to St. John, and buried in the old burying ground, at the head of King Street.... Years later their remains were carefully deposited in the lot of Amos Botsford, Esq., in the 'Rural Cemetery,' the beautiful Woodside grounds, at St. John."

The remainder of this short bio. was written prior to the renovation.

Col. Joshua Chandler was a 1747 graduate of Yale College and a member of the Connecticut Legislature. President John Adams taught at a two-room schoolhouse built in 1752 by James Putnam and John Chandler, Col. Chandler's cousin [Changed to cousin from brother on May 13, 2008.], from 1755 until 1758. Joshua Chandler was loyal to the Crown and fled into exile, settling with his family at Annapolis, N.S.. His New Haven property was confiscated and in March 1787 he was travelling with Elizabeth and William, his son and daughter to St. John, as it was known then, to meet commissioners appointed to adjust the claims of the Loyalists. Tragically, they were ship-wrecked at Musquash Head on March 9, just 20 miles west of Saint John. According to a history of Sackville, New Brunswick, William, hoping to secure the vessel, fastened a rope around his body and jumped overboard to swim to land, but he was immediately crushed between the vessel and rocks and was drowned. Col. Chandler and his daughter died from exposure, allegedly two days later, after they had reached the shore. I spent two summers in Musquash as a student at Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station, walking in the woods and along the beach during my lunch break. The woods, often foggy and foreboding, edge frigid Bay of Fundy waters, even at the height of summer. It is hard to imagine two ship-wrecked souls surviving in the woods for two days in the summer, let alone in late winter. The Chandler family was initially buried in the old burying ground, now known as the Loyalist Burial Ground, at the head of King Street. According to a history of Sackville New Brunswick by W.C. Milner, 1934, years later, their remains were reinterred in the lot of Amos Botsford, Esq., in Fernhill Cemetery, formerly known as the Rural Cemetery. In the event that the captions for the photos do not appear, the first photograph is of the Loyalist Burial Ground. The second photograph is the tombstone of Col. Chandler's great-grandson, Amos Botsford. The third photograph is of the Botsford family tombstone, behind Amos' tombstone. There is an anchor in front of Amos Botsford's tombstone. To the right of Amos Botsford's tombstone is a marker for Thomas Murray, the first husband of Col. Chandler's granddaughter.