The Grave of Serenus S. Roberts

As previously mentioned, I love old graveyards. I am not convinced that graveyards are typically haunted. If ghosts exist I would think they'd have better places to haunt than the place their bodies are at rest. 

I found a pretty cool grave in Dellwood Cemetery. The headstone simply says: "The Grave of Serenus S. Roberts" I don't know the story behind it, maybe the headstone was replaced and those who did so had no information to work with. When I did a search on Serenus S. Roberts I found this on internment.net:  Roberts, Serenus, no dates, [ND]

Ancestry.com has a little more information on this name.

Serenus S Roberts (1801 - Unknown)

Born in Manchester, Bennington, Vermont, USA on 17 Aug 1801 to Christopher Roberts and Mary Purdy.

I went back to the internment page and found entries for Christopher Roberts (Roberts, Gen. Christopher, d. 16 May 1832, age: 79y, [ND]) but not Mary Purdy. Next time I visit this cemetery I will look for her.

Gen. Roberts was, I believe, a Revolutionary War soldier. I did a little more digging and found an entry for this name in the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution Patriot & Graves Index. There are two:

ROBERTS, Christopher
Type and State of Service: Sergeant, VT
Birth: 1753
Death: 1832
Spouse: None Listed

ROBERTS, Christopher
Type and State of Service: Sergeant, VT
Birth: 1754
Death: 1832
Spouse: Mary Purdy

I am not sure which one is correct, as neither is listed as a general. Either way, if Christopher and Mary are the parents of Serenus (which is a boy's name), we know that he was born in 1801. I wonder why his date of death is unknown. Was he a missing person? If so is the grave just a placeholder for posterity? A mystery that will never be solved I am sure, which is kind of sad.

Here is his headstone: