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Charles Monroe Otis & Lorinda “Linnie” Sweet
Charles Born 1841 Died 1904 Lorinda Born 1845 Died 1917
Old Red Church Cemetery, Tivoli. Granite monument surrounded by footstones and a wrought iron fence, southwest of the church, northwest of an intersection of access roadway.
Brothers Charles and William Otis are both buried in this cemetery and have impressive granite monuments. See the separate entry for more information about William. Charles Monroe Otis was born in Chester, Massachusetts, the son of Quartus Otis and Eunice Palmer.
He enlisted in Company E of the Massachusetts 10th infantry regiment in 1861 and served for the duration of the Civil War. In between tours, he found time to marry Lorinda “Linnie” Sweet in 1863 in Huntington, MA. His brother William married Linnie’s sister, Sarah. At the time of his marriage, Charles’s occupation was listed as mechanic. He and Sarah would have eight children, five of who would live to adulthood– May L. who married J. Charles Greff, Charles M. Jr. who married Harriet Quimby, Arthur H. who married Celeste Botiller, Eunice P., and Sadie L. Otis. May, Sadie, and Eunice were all members of the Daughters of the American Revolution under their ancestor James Otis.
Charles and his brother both made the move from Massachusetts to Tivoli in the 1870s, following their uncle, Watson D. Otis, a Divisional Superintendent of the New York Central Railroad and later a long-serving president of the Village of Tivoli. Charles probably arrived in Dutchess County between 1875 and 1879 when his son Charles M. Jr. was born in New York State.
Though Charles was a mechanic during the time of the Civil War, his occupation would change over the course of his life. In 1870, living with his young family in Huntington, MA, he was working at a paper mill—no surprise that he moved west to find better opportunities. In 1880, he lived next door to his uncle Watson, and in 1900, he was listed as a stone mason.
Linnie was involved with the Baptist church in town and held a lawn party fundraiser with the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavour for its benefit at their home one Friday evening in August of 1895. A year later, her son Charles, only 18 years old at the time, would suffer a terrible accident in early October while working on a “gravel train” (probably one of many such construction-related conveyances used to repair the rails and clear tracks obstructed by rockfalls or crashes that his uncle William worked with). He fell while descending a moving engine at Peekskill, crushing his right leg which had to be amputated above the knee. He spent three months in Vassar Hospital, finally returning home in time for New Year’s Eve. He would have to give up his railroad career, but found a new calling a few years later. Charles Jr. operated a drug store in Tivoli for four decades.
Charles M. Otis, Sr., died at home on Montgomery Street in Tivoli at 62 years of age, and the Grand Army of the Republic conducted his funeral services.