Your Silent Neighbor
By David K. Leff
Canton Town Historian

Growing up in Canton, Joseph F. Lincoln (1838-1908) went to local schools and learned his father’s trade of carriage making, which he practiced until his mid-twenties when he enlisted in the infantry in the Civil War. He served one year with the Twenty-Fifth Regiment. In 1866, he married Martha Woodford of West Avon. She died in 1892.

Upon leaving the military, Lincoln moved to Winsted and lived there until entering the State Soldiers Home in the Noroton section of Darien. He stayed at the Home for the last nine years of his life. On December 21, 1908, he was on his way to neighboring Norwalk when he “suffered an attack of apoplexy [a stroke] and died before he reached the hospital,” according to a newspaper report.

Joseph F. Lincoln is buried in the Canton Springs Cemetery on Canton Springs Road.


“Your Silent Neighbors” introduces readers to people out of Canton’s past.  Readers are encouraged to visit these gravesites and pay their respects to the people who have helped make our community what it is today.