Our local cemeteries are the final resting place for many of Eagle’s earliest pioneer families.  On a recent trip to Jericho Cemetery, one of the gravestones caught my attention while doing research.

An old stone laying on the ground was weathered and worn, but still quite legible.  It read “THOMAS JAMES DIED Nov. 15, 1863 AE. 99 yr – also his wife ANNE DIED Nov. 17, 1863 AE. 97 yrs”.  It seemed quite remarkable that wife Anne died two days after her husband.  Though very unusual, I had seen it before.  Spouses married many decades dying shortly after one another.

After a review of other Eagle deaths in 1863 there didn’t appear to be any epidemics that year. I wondered about her grief, so overwhelming that her body shut down in only two days!  A couple so close and dependent on each other that one couldn’t bear the loss of the other.  Was it just that time in history, when man and wife were together 24/7? Or was it an unusual but touching love story?

Thomas James was born in 1764 and wife Anne in 1766, both from Leicestershire, England.  They married and had two children, Henry and Thomas.  In 1839, Thomas, his wife Anne, son Henry James, Henry’s wife and family immigrated to the United States while Thomas Jr. remained in England.

They settled in Eagle in 1842.  Henry James and his son John ran two adjacent 40-acre farms just southwest of the Village along Hwy 67.  Thomas and wife Anne settled in a home along the Eagle-Mukwonago border near Hwy E and Hwy LO and enjoyed the remainder of their lives together.

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