Beth Sansbury

The Poulson Family Beth Sansbury

This is the story of the Poulsons, who emigrated at first from Finland to Sweden in the early 1600s and then in 1653 from Sweden to New Sweden in the New World. They moved on to Maryland in the 1660s, ultimately settling in Carroll County, which was then Frederick County. The Andrew Poulson farmstead was not far from that of Robert Strawbridge, the founder of Methodism in America. Strawbridge's second Class Meeting was held in the Poulson's home. Poulson gave a corner of his property in 1763 for building the first Methodist church in the area, which was later rebuilt as Stone Chapel and still stands today. The second part of the book tells the story of the family cemetery whose gravestones were moved from the farmstead to the cemetery at Stone Chapel to protect them from a quarry's encroachment. The gravestones are now on the grounds of the Strawbridge Shrine in New Windsor, Maryland, a Methodist heritage site.
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