● ● ● by his side day after day, praying earnestly and no doubt desperately. His brother Masons did what they could. The records of St. John’s Lodge contain an entry on June 25: “Bro. G. W. Glover being represented as very sick and in indigent circumstances, his case was referred to the Committee of Charity.”159 But nothing was any use. In two more days it was all over.160
The next day the City of Wilmington issued and distributed a black-bordered announcement which read: “The citizens of Wilmington are respectfully invited to attend the funeral of Maj Geo W Glover, dec’d, at 6 o’clock p.m. from the ‘Hanover House’ to the usual place of interment, June 28th, 1844.”161 The members of St. John’s Lodge convened and moved in procession to the Hanover House and thence to the Episcopal Burying Ground, where the Reverend Dr. A. P. Repiton conducted the service.162
Of Mrs. Glover’s feelings at this time the most significant expression may be a poem she entitled “Thoughts at a Grave”:
Spread o’er the turf
The spirit’s fetterless
And free to range the golden streets of Heaven
A higher boon than earth to it was given
Tenant of loathsome clay
From sin how blest to be away
159 [Minute Book of St. John’s Lodge No. 1 (1841–1851), The Grand Lodge of Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons of North Carolina, p. 76.]
160 An obituary, written by the Reverend Albert Case and published in The Freemasons’ Monthly Magazine, describes the deathbed scene in these words:
Conscious that the time of his departure was at hand, he calmly arranged his business—prepared for the removal of her he loved, to the home of her youth, and consoled her with the thought that they “would meet again in heaven”—said he—“I have a precious hope in the merits of my Saviour. . . .” He departed in hope and peace.
Albert Case, “Obituary,” The Freemasons’ Monthly Magazine, 1 May 1845, p. 221.
161 [Elizabeth Earl Jones, “Mrs. Eddy in North Carolina and Memoirs by Elizabeth Earl Jones,” c. 1938, Reminiscence, p. 18a, MBEL.]
162 The “governor” whom Mrs. Eddy described as attending the funeral may have been former Governor Dudley of North Carolina, who lived in Wilmington and has been identified as a friend of the Glovers during their stay.