Hannah Sanborn

  General Notes:

Maiden name per research of Ray and Mary Straw

PROMINENT AMERICAN GHOSTS by Susie Smith; World Pub Co Cleveland and NY
"The Old Straw Place in Newfield Maine was not built of straw, but by Straw- Gideon Straw ESQ, circa 1787. His daughter Hannah haunts it - and with good reason. She is buried there in the house.
It is not very often that a tombstone can be found in the corner of a kitchen floor. In fact, this is probably the only house that has a burial marker as a built in feature. The marker is a metal plate about five feet long and two feet wide, shaped exactly like a headstone, but laid flat. It has been bricked into the floor and in recent years it has been cemented around to keep dirt from coming up through the cracks. Still it could do with the addition of a blanket of grass and some flowers to make it into a respectable burial plot. If I were Hannah I would haunt a house, too, whose occupants did no better by my grave than that.
the text of the inscription reads:
Sacred to the memory of Hannah, Wife of Ira Chadbourn,
Who died March 2, 1826. Age 30
Blest are the dead, who die in Christ,
Whose triumph is so great,
Who calmly wait a noblier life,
A noblier life shall meet.
Over the top a willow tree is etched. This means to students of tombstones, that person buried there died young. Since the family graveyard nearby also has a duplicate plaque dedicated to the memory of Hannah Chadbourne, the question arises as to whether she is buried there or in the house? But the evidence of large slabs of rock shaped like a coffin and lying in the basement directly under the area where the metal plate is, would seem to indicate that the body is in the house...."
addenda
I was actually researching the Hannah Straw legend, which was completely debunked using nothing but the genealogy I dug up, when I documented all the information I entered on FindAGrave.
Hannah Sanborn became Hannah Chadbourne when she married her husband, Ira. She and Ira were living in Limington, Maine when she passed away in 1826 and was buried in Limington. Her daughter, Hannah Chadbourne, married the son of Gideon straw in 1836. When Ira died Hannah had the body of her mother disinterred from the cemetery in Limington and moved to Newfield. At that time a new headstone was made for her mother to match the one made for her father.
The old tombstone was utilized for many things, including as a cover for a kettle, and eventually made its way out to the garage.
The legend of Hannah Straw is completely and utterly false, none of the dates line up and this legend is the reason why I did the research on the cemetery. It is a matter of public record that both Hannah Sanborn Chadbourne (d. 1826) and her daughter Hannah Chadbourne Straw are buried in the Trafton cemetery, not in the basement of the house.
[research of Kate Michaud on Findagrave 111209]

Find A Grave Memorial 76099957

Hannah married Ira Chadbourn. (Ira Chadbourn was born about 1791, died on 25 Jan 1862 and was buried in Trafton Cemetery Newfield, York County, Maine, USA.)