Hannah Alling

She was the wife of Joseph Bradley. He was possibly the son of William Bradley* of East Haven where so many Bradleys settled that the community was often called Bradleytown. According to Hannah’s epitaph, she was “amiable and virtuous.”

• My research shows that the Joseph Bradley who was the son of this William Bradley of East Haven seems to have passed away in 1778 — two years before Hannah married husband #2 — which would make this the wrong Joseph Bradley (“her” Joseph was husband #3). Research is ongoing.

Hannah was the daughter of Samuel and Sarah (Woodward) Miles. Her first husband was Enos Alling, who married her in 1753 two years after his first wife Phebe (Whiting) Alling passed away at 31; her second marriage (in 1780) was to Jared Ingersoll, who married her the year after Hannah (Whiting) Ingersoll — Phebe’s sister — died. Joseph Bradley was her third husband.

Hannah’s stone is one of two striped marble tombstones in the crypt; the material is so soft that the inscriptions have not aged well and are now difficult to read. Her epitaph reads:

In Memory of Mrs. Hannah Bradley The amiable & virtuous consort of Mr. Joseph Bradley who departed this Life December 3rd AD 1786 in the 54th Year of her Age Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.