Gravestone of John Short (1808-1858), Mary (Jeffrey) Short and their daughter Jane

Found on Find a Grave, 10 Oct 2026: the photograph (by L. C.) on the memorial of Mary Jeffrey Short at the Woodstock Presbyterian Cemetery (223484854; see findagrave-jeffrey-family). A tall granite stone, its front face reading:

IN MEMORIAM / JOHN SHORT / BORN AUG. 6 1808 / RUGLEY / NORTHUMBERLAND / ENGLAND / DIED OCT. 4 1858 / ORONO / DURHAM COUNTY, ONT. / AND HIS WIFE / MARY JEFFREY / BORN JAN. 8 1809 / BERWICK, SCOTLAND / DIED NOV. 1 1883 / WOODSTOCK / AND THEIR DAUGHTER / JANE / BORN NOV. 23 1836 / AT COBOURG / DIED AUG. 6 1909 / AT WOODSTOCK

A side face also carries an inscription, in shadow in this photograph and not readable.

What it shows:

• John Short’s birthplace: Rugley, Northumberland, England, a hamlet near Alnwick. WikiTree’s “Rufley, Northumberland Co., Ontario” is a misreading of it. The “Newcastle, England” in the Short family history, as WikiTree quotes it, is probably a garbling of the county.
• His birth, Aug. 6 1808. WikiTree has 8 Aug; the figure on the stone is a 6, unlike the 8s of “1808”.
• Mary Jeffrey’s birth, Jan. 8 1809, “Berwick, Scotland”: the county of Berwick (Berwickshire), not Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is in England. Foulden, where the family accounts place the Jeffreys, is in Berwickshire.
• Her death, Nov. 1 1883, against 15 Nov on WikiTree. The stone’s “1” is clear.
• Their eldest daughter Jane, born at Cobourg on 23 Nov 1836. That puts the couple at Cobourg in their first year of marriage (married 7 Jan 1836, at Cobourg as WikiTree has it).

A memorial put up by the family after 1909 at the Woodstock Presbyterian Cemetery, where Mary was buried. For John it is a cenotaph: he is buried at Lawrence Cemetery, Orono, under his own broken stone (gravestone-john-short-orono-1858). A larger photograph on his Orono memorial (photo 299172469) reads the same, “BORN AUG. 6 1808 / RUGLEY”; its side face is still in shadow.