‘Broken-hearted stranger’ died 187 years ago in Claiborne, Alabama

I was looking through some local history notes earlier this week and saw where today – Feb. 27 – marks 187 years since the death of the “broken-hearted stranger” at Claiborne.

The first I ever heard of this unfortunate young man was in George Buster Singleton’s 1995 book, “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers.” Between the covers of this book, Singleton devoted an entire chapter to “The Tomb of the Brokenhearted Stranger.” Singleton noted that the man’s proper name was William Coombs, a young man from Portland, Maine who was search of “his one love, who came with her family south into the wilderness.”

Coombs is said to have stopped to rest in Claiborne, where he contracted yellow fever. While laying on his deathbed, Coombs wrote what would be his final epitaph:

Alone and in sorrow
Dark hours roll by;
Forsaken and friendless
Why should I not die?

The turf will lie lightly
Above this lone spot
Where the brokenhearted stranger
Lies alone and forgot.

Singleton may have garnered some of this information from an article published in the July 5, 1920 edition of The Montgomery Advertiser. That newspaper featured an article titled “Reminiscences, Then and Now, of the Quaint Little City of Claiborne; Once a Cosmopolitan City of State,” written by David Holt.

Based on clues in Holt’s article, he had apparently walked through the old Claiborne cemetery that contained Coombs’ grave.

“Inscriptions show that the majority of those that sleep upon that picturesque bank, high above the yellow waters of the Alabama – that is, those who were provided with monuments were from Virginia and the Carolinas, though nearly all of the New England and Eastern states are represented there,” Holt wrote. “New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts have colonies among the dead and one very lonely man from Maine is resting there. His name was William Coombs, he came from Portland and he died in 1838.”

Holt noted that who ever caused Coombs’ grave to be engraved was only slightly acquainted with Coombs because the space where his age should have been was blank: Aged – Years.

“Good intentions are recorded in that blank space,” Holt wrote. “Somebody evidently intended to fill out what the stranger’s age was, and cause it to be recorded later, but somehow never did get to it.”

What’s interesting is that Singleton and Holt’s transcription of the headstone are slightly different. Holt gives it as saying:

Alone and in sorrow dark days roll by.
Forsaken and friendless, why should I not die?
The turf will lie lightly above the lone spot
Where the heart-broken stranger is laid and forgot.

It has been years since I last visited the graveyard where Coombs is buried. On one such visit, I actively looked for his headstone, but I could not find it. Using an old survey of the graveyard, I had a good idea of where the grave was located, but I found no sign of the headstone during my search. It has either been destroyed, removed or perhaps it fell over and became buried over time.