By Lisa Capobianco Staff Writer What started out as a cleanup day in a basement turned into an excavation site for Meriden resident Shawn Hard. About four years ago, Hard was cleaning up the basement of his home on Reservoir Avenue one day when he came across a tombstone with a name familiar to Southington: Cornelia Sloper. Hard found the tombstone hidden in a dark corner of his basement. As he dusted off the 400-pound tombstone, Hard read the inscription: “Cornelia, wife of David R. Sloper, died Feb. 4, 1837.” Underneath, he read another inscription that said their daughter, also named Cornelia, died in May that same year. “That’s pretty wild,” Hard said. “We had no clue how it got here or how long it was there for.” Hard and his wife Kelley Ingram said they wanted to find the rightful owners of the headstone, but did not know about the history of the Sloper family. They called Eddie Siebert, a constituent worker from Mayor Michael Rohde’s office. When Siebert inspected the tombstone, he recognized the name, and had a feeling it was connected to the Southington YMCA. “This is neat,” Siebert said. “This is certainly the most unique—dealing with [...]
By Lisa Capobianco Staff Writer What started out as a cleanup day in a basement turned into an excavation site for Meriden resident Shawn Hard. About four years ago, Hard was cleaning up the basement of his home on Reservoir Avenue one day when he came across a tombstone with a name familiar to Southington: Cornelia Sloper. Hard found the tombstone hidden in a dark corner of his basement. As he dusted off the 400-pound tombstone, Hard read the inscription: “Cornelia, wife of David R. Sloper, died Feb. 4, 1837.” Underneath, he read another inscription that said their daughter, also named Cornelia, died in May that same year. “That’s pretty wild,” Hard said. “We had no clue how it got here or how long it was there for.” Hard and his wife Kelley Ingram said they wanted to find the rightful owners of the headstone, but did not know about the history of the Sloper family. They called Eddie Siebert, a constituent worker from Mayor Michael Rohde’s office. When Siebert inspected the tombstone, he recognized the name, and had a feeling it was connected to the Southington YMCA. “This is neat,” Siebert said. “This is certainly the most unique—dealing with [...]