Shelburne Falls
If you have gone into Arms Cemetery, you have noticed the Civil War tower monument near the center of the cemetery honoring the 26 Shelburne residents who perished during enlistment. But if you count the names, you will find there are actually 27 names. And at the bottom of the monument’s east side is a name as finely engraved as the rest but slightly higher than the regular spacing between the names — Henry C. Utley. As it turns out, Utley’s life is even a bigger mystery.
Research shows that Utley was born in Sheffield, England, in 1830 to Charles and Mary Utley. He enlisted into the Massachusetts 10th Regiment Infantry, Company H, on June 21,1861, when he was, according to Civil War databases, 32 years old. His Shelburne death notice says that he died a year later at age 35. However, the Massachusetts Vital Records suggests that the Civil War databases are correct, giving him the age of 32 on his June 13, 1861 marriage record.
During the 1861 statistic, Utley was living in Shelburne and married to Colrain native Louisa Roberts, nine years his junior and the daughter of Goodwin Roberts and Lydia Bishop. She was unemployed, while he was a mechanic. Yet his death notice said that he was a cutler. Whether or not he worked at Lamson & Goodnow prior to his death is unknown. The company’s employee records going back that far were destroyed in a fire, and there were other cutleries operating back then in the area, particularly in Greenfield, where he may have worked at.
Another mystery is that two different pastors married Utley and his wife. The Shelburne listing says it was Reverend William J. Pomfrit, while the state vital record says it was a Minister of the Gospel, Aaron Foster.
What is not so mysterious is his death. He was shot in the head behind the ear at Fair Oaks, Virginia, brought to a “surgery” and was sent to Washington, D.C., where he died June 5, 1862. It seems Utley and his wife had no children, and she remarried on May 18, 1866 — to George Fuller of Worcester, who was a dresser.
If you have any more information or records about Utley, please contact the Shelburne Historical Society at 413-625-6150. n