CAMBRIDGE - A Fairfax funeral home's assistance has helped make possible a graveside committal service for the re-interment of John Wood, the possible founder of Cambridge, and his wife, Hannah.
It will be held here at 10 a.m. Saturday in Mountain View Cemetery.
Born in Massachusetts in 1740, Wood was a second corporal in Vermont's First Company of Militia, which was founded in Bennington in 1764. He moved to Bennington in the first days of that town's settlement.
Sometime between 1786 and 1790, he moved to Cambridge with Hannah and their four children. He was a farmer and landowner who held mortgages.
He died on April 22, 1813. He was 73.
Wood and his wife were buried on the high hill overlooking their home farm on Route 109 in Cambridge. Recently, the land was purchased by G.W. Tatro Construction Inc., which plans to extract gravel from the property. After filing for an Act 250 permit to excavate the site, the company contracted Hayes-Rich Funeral Home of Fairfax to direct the disinterment of John and Hannah Wood.
Hayes-Rich arranged for the burial of the remains on the Wood family lot in Mountain View Cemetery, located on Bartlett Hill Road in Cambridge.
Dr. Paul Morrow, the state's chief medical examiner, and Dr. Bruno Frohlich, an anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, assisted with the Nov. 6, 2001, disinterment.
The Vermont Adjutant General's Office at Camp Johnson has authorized a burial with full military honors for several Wood family descendants.
After the service Saturday the Cambridge Historical Society will hold a reception at the Masonic Hall in Jeffersonville, where Morrow and Frohlich will offer a presentation about the disinterment.
The service and reception are open to the public.