Location: 43.88606 -71.04093
From its intersection with Stewart Road, drive southeast on Foss Mountain Road 1.25 miles to the Foss Mountain trailhead. Follow the trail west 800 feet to a cellar hole and sign on the right (north). The stone-walled cemetery is 250 feet to the north. There is one headstone for John H. Brooks. There are no other discernible graves.
Historical Information: John Brooks was the son of William and Asenath Brooks, who lived in the house just south of the cemetery. William Brooks owned a large area of land on Foss Mountain Road. The “Brooks Pasture,” cellar hole, and cemetery are along the current Foss Mountain hiking trail.
More details can be found in an addendum by Nella Henney to the book by Keith and Leon Gerry, “Soldiers of Eaton and Madison, 1776-1865”: “JOHN H. BROOKS Co. A., 11th Maine Volunteer Infantry. John’s home was with his family in Eaton when the war began, but he was working on the Roscoe Stone farm in Brownfield, Maine. In October, 1861, he and three Stone boys set out for the front. Only one of these four young men ever came home alive and he died the year after the war of disabilities incurred in the service. John Brooks seems to have been captured at the battle of Fair Oaks, Va., May 31-June 1, 1862, and recovered soon afterwards. Unfit for further duty as a soldier, he started home, probably in August, but got no nearer than the U.S. General Hospital at Portsmouth Grove, Rhode Island, where he died on October 13, 1862. Family Cemetery on Foss Mountain.”
According to military records, John H. Brooks enlisted 11/7/1861 and mustered out 9/16/1862. The rest of the story makes sense that a month later he had only made it as far as Rhode Island.
The true story of the Stone brothers is not quite as tragic as this narrative implies. The three eldest sons of James B. and Harriet Stone did enlist at the same time as John Brooks, all in Co. A, 11th Maine. The eldest, Frank, did die in service on 6/15/1862. He was born around 1833 and was a musician in the war. The next oldest, James Roscoe Stone, mustered out on 11/18/1864 and lived a long life before dying in 1926. The third son, Sylvester, mustered out at the same time but died 1/25/1866 at the age of 29 years and 2 months. The Stones also had a fourth son, Lorenzo, who enlisted 9/21/1864 in Co. A., 8th Maine, mustered out 6/12/1865 and died in 1883.
Keith and Nella Henney, local historians and benefactors to the Mount Washington Valley, lived on Foss Mountain Road. Keith felt such a profound connection to this soldier who had previously lived on his land that at his death he requested that his ashes be buried in an urn near John H. Brooks’ grave. His name is on a headstone at the nearby Snowville Cemetery where Nella chose to be buried.
Condition: In May of 2021, the headstone of John Brooks was reset and repaired by Jess Davis, Nancy Watson and Mark Watson. The headstone was reset in its original base, repaired with epoxy and aluminum channel braces, then the voids filled with mortar. The site is maintained by the Watsons.