Contained enough to pay us all,
And buy this stone.
Rebecca Nourse
Yarmouth Eng 1621
Salem Mass 1692
Accused of witchcraft she declared "I am innocent and God will clear my innocency." Once acquitted yet falsely condemned she suffered death July 19th, 1692.
O Christian Martyr who for truth could die,
When all about thee owned the hideous lie
The world redeemed from superstition's sway,
Is breathing freer for thy sake to-day.
CONNECTICUT
New Haven.
Composed by the deceased
Partridge Thacher
Rest here, my body, till the Archangel's voice more sonorous far than nine fold thunder, wakes the sleeping dead; then rise to thy just sphere and be my house immortal.
On a babe four days old
Since I so very soon was done for
I wonder what I was begun for.
Here lies the body of Obadiah Wilkinson
And Ruth, his wife.
Their warfare is accomplished.
Franklin White
Here lies Frank a shining light
Whose name, life, actions all were white.
Reader pass on. Don't waste your time
On bad biography and bitter rhyme.
For what I am this crumbling clay assures,
And what I was is no affair of yours.
God works a wonder now and then,
He though a lawyer was an honest man.
Dr. Somerby
At length a grave spots for him provided,
Where all through him so many of us died did.
Early, bright, chaste as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exalted and went to heaven.
Norfolk.
Lieut. Nathan Davis
Died in 1781
Death is a debt that's justly due,
That I have paid and so must you.
Elizabeth, wife of Nathan Davis
Died 1786
This debt I owe is justly due,
And I am come to sleep with you.
NEW YORK
Skaneateles.
Underneath this pile of stones
Lie's all thats left of Sally Jones.
Her name was Lord it was not Jones.
But Jones was used to ryme with stones.
Mary Drummond Smith
Neuralgia worked on Mrs. Smith
'Till neath the sod it laid her.
She was a worthy Methodist
And served as a crusader.
Wyoming County.
She was in health at 11.30 a. m.
And left for Heaven at 3.30 p. m.
East Thompson.
Here lies one who never sacrificed his reason to superstitious God, nor ever believed that Jonah swallowed the whale.
New York City.
Trinity Churchyard
1767
Tho' Boreas' blasts and boisterous waves
Have tossed me to and fro,
In spite of both by God's decree
I harbor here below;
Where I do now at anchor ride
With many of our fleet,
Yet once again I must set sail,
My Admiral Christ to meet.
Alden White
Grim death took me without any warning,
I was well one day, and stone dead next morning.
Madeline White
God takes the good too good on earth to stay,
God leaves the bad too bad to take away.
Sarah Thomas is dead and that's enough
The candle is out and so is the snuff
Her soul is in Heaven you need not fear
And all that's left is buried here.
Ithaca.
The pale consumption gave the mortal blow.
The fate was certain although the event was slow.
While on earth my knee was lame,
I had to nurse and heed it.
But now I'm at a better place,
Where I don't even need it.
Her blooming cheeks were no defence
Against the scarlet fever.
In five day's time she was cut down,
To dwell with Christ forever.
Moses White
His grand excellence was that he was genuine
Father and Mother and I
Choose to be buried asunder.
Father and Mother here,
And I buried yonder.
Julia King
I go to meet my brother
John Dale
and his two wives
A period's come to all their toilsome lives,
The good man's quiet—still are both his wives.
Greenwood.
Grieve not for me my Harriet dear
For I am better off,
You know what were my sufferings
And what a dreadful cough.
David Stuart
A loving father and companion,
Follow me as I have—Jesus.
Orange County.
Underneath this stone doeth lie
As much virtue as could die;
Which when alive did vigor give
To as much of beauty as could live.
Amos Judge
(Coal dealer.)
He gave full weight to all t'is said
And did it without vaunting;
When in the ballance he is weighed
He will not be found wanting.
William Newhall
He 'rose in health at early dawn
To hail the new born year:
Before the evening shade came on
He finished his career.
He was a man of invention great
Above all who he lived nigh;
But he could not invent to live
When God called him to die.
A thousand ways cut short our days,
None are exempt from death.
A honey-bee by stinging me
Did stop my mortal breath.
He got a fish bone in his throat
And then he sang an angel's note.
Orange County.
Here lies a kind and loving wife,
A tender nursing mother;
A neighbor free from brawl and strife,
A pattern for all others.
To the memory of
Susan Mum
Silence is wisdom
This corpse
is
Phebe Thorps
Neal Keven
His accounts were found square to a cent
A Watch-maker's Epitaph
Copied from a tomb-stone in Wales by old Sexton Brown, the once famous sexton of Grace Church, N. Y.
Here lies in a horizontal position the outside case of George Rutlege watch-maker, whose abilities in that line were an honor to his profession.
Integrity was the main-spring of all the actions of his life. Humane, honest and industrious his hands never stopped until they had relieved distress.
He had the art of disposing of his time in such a way that he never went wrong except when set agoing by persons who did not know his key, and even then was easily set right again.
He departed this life wound up in the hope of being taken in hand by his Maker, thoroughly cleaned, regulated and repaired and set going in the world to come.
IN THE SOUTH
Philadelphia.
Christ's Churchyard.
(Written by himself when twenty-three years of age.)
The body of Benjamen Franklin, printer like the cover of an old book its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here food for worms.
Yet the work itself shall not be lost for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition corrected and amended by the author.
Carved on a little stone in a Maryland churchyard, after the name of the dead.
"He held the pall at the funeral of Shakspeare."
Bayfield, Miss.
(On a child struck by lightning.)
Struck by thunder
Stranger pause my tale attend,
And learn the cause of Hannah's end.
Across the world the wind did blow,
She ketched a cold that laid her low.
We shed a lot of tears 'tis true,
But life is short—aged 82.
Here lies my wife in earthly mould,
Who when she lived did naught but scold.
Peace! wake her not, for now she's still,
She had; but now I have my will.
Alexandria, Va.
To the memory of a female stranger whoes mortal sufferings ended Oct. 14th 1816.
How valued, how loved once, avails thee not
To whom related, or by whom begot.
A heap of dust alone remains of thee,
Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be.
Peter Letig was his name,
Heaven I hope his station,
Baltimore was his dwelling place
And Christ is his salvation.
The milk of human kindness was my own dear cherub wife
I'll never find another one as good in all my life.
She bloomed, she blossomed, she decayed,
And under this tree her body we laid.
Mr. James Danner, late of Louisville, having been laid by the side of his four wives, received this touching epitaph:
An excellent husband was this Mr. Danner,
He lived in a thoroughly honorable manner.
He may have had troubles,
But they burst like bubbles,
He's at peace, now with Mary, Jane, Susan and Hannah.
Maryland.
Henrietta thou was mild and lovely,
Gentle as a summer breeze;
Pleasant as the air of evening,
When it floats among the trees.
With triumph on her tongue
With radiance on her brow,
She passed to that exalted throng
And shares their glory now.
They were two loving sisters,
Who in this dust do lie.
The very day Annie was buried
Elizabeth did die.
My father and mother were both insane
I inherited the terrible stain.
My grandfather, grandmother, aunts and uncles
Were lunatics all, and yet died of carbuncles.
Here lies the bones of David Jones,
Laid both dead and dumb.
He read a law and plead a cause
But died from drinking rum.
Over the grave of a brave engineer
Until the brakes are turned on time,
Life's throttle-valve shut down,
He works to pilot in the crew
That wears the martyr's crown.
On schedule time, on upper grade
Along the homeward section,
He lands his train in God's roundhouse
The morn of resurrection.
His time is full, no wages docked,
His name on God's pay roll,
And transportation through to Heaven
A free pass for his soul.
Elizabeth Scott lies buried here.