It’s spring and its finally time to start up Catching Marbles again! And what better way to do that than to take a sweet little amble through a garden cemetery? And let me tell you this one was a douzy!
I’d never heard of St Anne’s but it’s a Catholic (mostly Italian) cemetery hidden away in Lincoln Rhode Island. There are a lot of normal head stones here but there’s probably even more that are severely monied. I’m talking vault styled mausoleums complete with stained glass windows, family plots that look like their own mini gardens, stones that are enormous and ornately carved with religious imagery, and even one where the Virgin Mary was kept safe behind a milky aquarium-like shield. Clearly many of the people here were wealthy beyond measure. And Italian. And Catholic. And perhaps had a lot to repent for. Make of that what you will. I’m not making any potentially lethal enemies today!
St Anne’s was shocking not just in how much wealth was on display here but just how many people were buried on these hallowed grounds. What initially looked like an ordinary mid-size cemetery from the gates just sprawled and stretched out for acres and acres. We only explored a small fraction of it. Enough to get a lifetime’s worth of Virgin Marys, starved Jesuses, and sooo many creepy angels. I’d love to return here during a different time of day when the lighting is kinder and see if I can get any more dramatic cemetery photographs. All and all even though my camera fought with me the whole time this was an awesome trip I would highly suggest to any other taphophiles and I would be more than content to return here myself someday.
What’s a vacation without a stroll through a local cemetery? Boring, that’s what. Long before we packed the car we had our hearts set on checking out this cemetery. My travel companion was interested in it’s history (it is the mass burial grounds for a great deal of Civil War soldiers who died in the area during four separate battles – over 400 of which remain unidentified.) For me it was less about history and more about seeing what cemeteries look like in a different part of the country and this one looked big and old with some stones going back to the 1700’s.
We’d been flirting with this cemetery for days. Our first glimpse of it was at night when the gates were closed. We decided to walk around the fenceline aside the road and see how big it was to determine how long we’d need to explore it the next day. It went on and on and on and on…. and strange things kept happening. My camera refused to snap any photos, my travel companion was complaining of the smell of pipe smoke… It was time to hang this one up for the night.
The next day we once again didn’t make it there before dark. However there was still an hour or two before it closed so we drove in to check it out all the same. We noticed that there was a large monument at the beginning of it memorializing Francis Scott Key, the writer of our national anthem who was buried under the aforementioned monument. We would find his parents in the cemetery later on – protected by a little iron fence.
Also buried here were Barbara Hauer Fritchie who became famous when at the age of 95 she refused to surrender to the Confederate troops marching through her property. I guess at ninety-five you have very little to lose but it’s still a great story about a fiery old woman. And somewhere nearby there is the grave of the US’s first unofficial president and his wife who served before George Washington. I’m sorry I have already forgotten their names. Luckily I took photos that read John and Jane Hanson. So there, I don’t have to remember. Also of note was the first fireman to die in the line of duty, a bunch of soldiers from every war, and a memorial to the children who fought and died in the Civil War. Yes, children. And of course there are congressmen galore sprinkled throughout like confetti. And for the more gruesome there is a whole section for infants nicknamed “babyland” and a mass burial of Civil War soldiers who died in battle. This was more than enough to make me wonder if anyone was still lingering here after their demise. If so I didn’t feel any of them on this particular night.
On our last day in Frederick we took a huge chunk of time to go see the cemetery during daylight hours. It’s so big that it’s split up into sections – each named after a letter in the alphabet. I was drawn to the more ornate monuments, many of which had imagery on them I was completely unfamiliar with, others which I had seen before (like the cross and crown) but not often back home.
This cemetery was completely engrossing. Every time I thought we were done someone would find something else interesting. And we never did find the children of the Civil War monument but we did visit Confederate row where I learned that many of the confederates were poor whites… essentially fighting against their own interests (you can’t tell me an economy that favors slaves would have any higher opinion of exploiting those only one tier higher than them in class.) A lot of them were fighting for weird subtext kind of things like pride for their community or because that’s who their brother was fighting for or because of a convoluted misinterpretation of “states rights” – which I hear even today and it’s completely asinine. Freedom of the States does not mean freedom of the individual to do whatever the fuck they please – even the first pilgrims toppling off the Mayflower had a system of laws they had to abide by. Plus freedom of the individual should never extend to freedom of that individual to take the freedom of another individual. That’s just not workable in any way shape or form.
I got depressed thinking about all this. Because those Confederate soldiers who were so callously misled by the powers that be… they’re still very much alive in the bodies of their grand children. And still fighting against their own economic interests. And the idea that we never learn from history became very tiring to me.
My travel companion was struggling with all this too because at some point someone had torn down and defaced the Confederate memorial… which was placed by the Union to honor those they fought. I can understand the distress of this but I also understand there are A TON of Confederate statues erected in the 1960’s in direct response to the Civil Rights movement to basically scare people of color into accepting the status quo. And those statues… should absolutely be torn down. But this is America. We’re not good at nuance so maybe it’s for the better this statue has been lost. And maybe in the future, when we can all agree racism and all it’s various institutions are bad, can we look respectfully back at our own turbulent past.
This cemetery gave me a lot of food for thought. I learned things I didn’t expect and came home a humbler person for it.
Swan Point Cemetery is a gorgeous 200 acre garden cemetery that I had been meaning to return to so I could take photos and blog it. My first visit was to find the grave of H P Lovecraft, which we did, but it was a very short visit as the cemetery was closing within the hour. This time we made sure to leave quite early so we could have the time to walk the entire grounds and I must say there was a lot to see!
I think I was struck with the diversity in this particular graveyard. There seemed to be a lot of different ethnicities calling this their last resting place. Some of the stones even had different languages on them and a lot had symbols and designs even I was at a loss to interpret – which is always great fun! And mixed among them there were mausoleums, pillars, crosses, angels of all sorts, bronze statues, and a great deal of truly creative stones. One was even in the form of a dollhouse with the front door reading, “welcome home.” In fact there was a lot of endearing messages on these stones that would melt anyone’s heart – words of affirmation and love – poems, epitaphs, and Bible verses.
I was also enamored with how many kinds of monuments there were here – everything from traditional slate stones, to simple marble, to ornately carved marble, to metal, to natural granite boulders which were probably already there, to metal and mausoleums. It gave this place great character!
And so did all the infant stones. There were a lot buried within family plots that had not only their own stones but names in recognition of their exceptionally brief existence. It was pretty clear a lot of these were likely stillbirths and it sort of hit a soft spot with me. Having toured a lot of the less wealthy cemeteries I know historically infants and toddlers frequently weren’t given stones and of the handful of infants I have found almost none of them had names – instead being listed as “baby.” Sometimes they’d be buried with their mother if she also died during the birth or shortly after. I don’t think it’s because the poor loved their children any less – I think this was more a question of who has the luxury to spend time mourning. Infant deaths have historically been very common and in those days women were usually encouraged to just move on without any real grieving period – just pretending it never happened. It was another sobering lesson on the realities of the economic classes.
Another one of these reminders came in the form of the servicemen I found – coming from each of the wars of the past century – their memorials often had whole passages written on them on how exactly they died – overseas, during battle, as a prisoner in foreign lands, or in the hospital after being injured in battle. I was not used to this. I was used to the only identification that a serviceman was buried being the flag planted aside the grave that is paid for by the state. It was a lot to take in.
Meanwhile we did manage to find the grave of H P Lovecraft. I like finding author graves… the tokens left on them are frequently interesting. Today someone had left a bottle of whisky, a woolen hat, and a series of rubber duckies. Why, I have no idea but it was fun to speculate!
All and all I had a great time and think this would be a wonderful place for a little stroll or even a picnic. It was mid October when I visited and freakishly warm at more than 70 degrees. The sun melted me into a puddle! But other than that it was very pleasant for both me and my travel companion.
I must admit the Mount Hope Cemetery has been on my bucket list since I was told about it a few years ago. It’s a very large cemetery (possibly the largest I’ve been to with 300 acres and over 5,500 stones!) But besides the sheer amount of stones it’s also beautiful. As far as I know it’s the only garden cemetery in Maine, the second installed in the United States, and is situated amongst the hills of what must have been a swamp at one point which is now a series of well manicured mini ponds.
The cemetery functions also as a park and there’s tons of parking and a number of people out taking walks – perhaps in the steps of a young Stephen King who was said to wander here as a college student looking for inspiration to name his characters off the stones. (And I thought I was the only one to do this!) The monuments speak to great wealth and were at times pretty extravagant. We were on a search for a few famous inhabitants here – first the stone of a certain Mr. Peavey who invented a logging tool in his name that saved countless lives on Maine’s rivers. The second was Hannibal Hamelin who was vice president under Abraham Lincoln. (And who also has a “death couch” at the local library which I have yet to poke at.) Other people of note were gangster Al Brady, comedian Richard Golden, and actor Ralph Sipperly. The only one of these we found was Hamelin who was situated at the very front of the cemetery near the road and was easy to spot.
We both really enjoyed an afternoon amble through the cemetery. We weren’t there long at all when I snapped a photo of a lot of plots that were for The Home for Aged Women. In it a bright orb showed up. I have taken a lot of photos in all sorts of graveyards and cemeteries, this is the first time this has shown up so maybe we weren’t alone!
Indeed it wasn’t long before we found several Civil War memorials – which I must say is a bit odd for New England. And they were strange! A castle and a bronze statue of a faceless grim reaper dragging someone off to the great beyond. I was intrigued. There was also a memorial for the fallen of the Korean War which had a disturbing little plaque that noted half the fatalities of that war were in prison camps.
We went pretty far and enjoyed a great deal of the sights when my travel companion noticed something odd on one of the stones. It was a large bird of some kind. I thought this probably was an owl – which are fond of cemeteries as they are the perfect hunting ground for mice – but actually it was a hawk. A huge, fat, wet hawk. Probably perched here in the sun to dry off. It let us get alarmingly close without reacting. These photos were taken with full zoom but we were still only a few feet away. Just far enough to feel like we were safe from having our faces ripped off if it decided to turn. Very odd. But sweet in a way. Perhaps it was paying respects to a long forgotten life. We continued on after a few minutes, leaving the bird there to keep chilling.
It was a wet day with grey skies and slippery grass. It was probably this that resulted in the end of our little jaunt when my travel companion went flying down some stone steps landing with exceptional violence on his back. He was lucky to have been able to walk out of there. We decided to leave after this in search of first aid supplies for all the cuts. That being said – besides this little incident the trip to the cemetery was well enjoyed by both of us and maybe someday we’ll return to find those other stones. And the nearby death couch…
How could we go out for a day of sight seeing without ending up at a cemetery? We can’t, that’s how. Especially when said cemetery is in pristine condition, hosts rows of beautifully engraved slate stones, and is right in the same historic district we were already wandering around. Such is the case for the Charter Street Cemetery which is bordered by memorial stones which have all the names, birth, and death dates of all the Salem witch trial victims who were not buried here – in consecrated ground – but were buried in unmarked graves somewhere. We have long since lost where. It’s an interesting turn of events as it was installed by the town in the early 1990’s and now surrounds the same cemetery which hosts the hanging judge who condemned them all to death as well as a number of other historically pertinent individuals involved with these unfortunate circumstances.
The cemetery has its own gift shop which… I mean, that’s a cemetery after my own heart right there. Who wouldn’t want a T-shirt with the cemetery’s name and a death’s head brandished on the front? This is the place for the morbid at heart. And the cemetery itself is gorgeous! It’s VERY well taken care of and although the stones are from the late 1600’s and early 1700’s they’re in great shape. Almost all of them were legible, above ground, and displaying some delightful art. There wasn’t just death’s heads here but cherubs heads, skull and bones, and random faces.
And the people were hilarious. I was not the only one with an expensive camera sitting on the ground taking close up of the stones I found interesting and all the other taphophiles here seemed very welcoming. This was definitely a different kind of tourist and part of why I love Salem so much.
Meanwhile, as i dithered about, my travel companion was on a quest to find the hanging judge. Luckily there was a little map at the beginning of a cemetery that was easy to follow to find this grave. His stone was encased in granite for some reason, maybe to prevent theft? I don’t know but it was the only stone I could see that looked like this. We held in our boos until we left but really… it’s probably best not to be known as a real life super villain. Just saying.
In any event the cemetery was small but absolutely beautiful and I fell in love with the death’s heads and wish to use them as inspiration for tattoo designs. Would definitely suggest a visit to this cemetery to anyone in the area who may appreciate these things.
After crawling back from under the bridge on Quaker Road I continued on my journey to find a good hiking trail. However my attention was distracted by an adorable little historic cemetery off the road. There was a little driveway of sorts into the cemetery that went to the back but it had no sign up anywhere. I had no idea where I was… I *think* I was at the Ledgeview Cemetery based on a Google search.
Coming in there was a structure I thought was a well preserved crypt but it had an inscription which made me wonder if it wasn’t a tomb of some sort? It was interesting whatever it was.
This cemetery was decently small and nestled in a scenic little spot surrounded by stone walls and forest. Above it on a hill sat a huge farmhouse and a cornfield looking down. To the side, where the road was, there was another farmhouse, this one much older looking, maybe from the late 1700’s. Quaint. Beautiful. The perfect spot to catch one’s breathe. .. or have a Gothic picnic.
Most of the stones were from the early 1800’s with a mix of slate and marble, none of which had aged well in such a humid environment. Still, it had its charm, and weirdly enough there were several modern plots – one reading 2007. I guess there’s space left so why not?
It’s funny. It seems I have been all over the place – this blog started when I went to all the lower 48 states, and then Europe, and then decided to explore all corners of New England, but what I haven’t done in all that time is pay any attention whatsoever to the town where I was raised and spent the majority of my life: Rindge NH. And what a perfect time to explore a deserted cemetery so close to home than when we’re all still being super cautious about the corona virus.
So that’s how I ended up in the center of Rindge at the Meetinghouse Cemetery. I parked at the church because I had a foggy recollection that there was a gap in the fence I could walk through at the corner of it. Indeed there is, as well as a proper entrance adjacent to the current town hall just down the street a little ways where the old crypt still stands. Parking at either is easy and doesn’t bother anyone.
I hadn’t visited this place since I was probably 12 or 13 years old and had a friend living nearby. We’d walked the cemetery and played in the town center – once giving the dog officer a hell of a scare as we bounded through the snow in the common on one particularly dark evening. But happy childhood memories aside, this is the heart of the historic parts of Rindge and it’s got a lot of stories to tell. And what a better day to tell them than on a rainy day like this?! The perfect activity for those of you going nuts in quarantine – no one walks through old cemeteries in the rain… well, except for me and a handful of other delightfully weird people.
I have to say I don’t remember this being the most hill-filled graveyard I have ever been too. WHEW! There was no effort whatsoever put into flattening the ground here but I must admit that adds to how dramatic it feels with slate stones dating back to the 1700’s and creepy barren trees on all sides. Still it was super peaceful and welcoming to the photographer in me. (Though people driving by absolutely did notice me there. Probably thought I was the Ghost of the 1970’s with my orange plaid bellbottoms.)
A Little About the Stones…
I’ve learned a few things over the years about these old graveyards and cemeteries. The first is the difference between a cemetery, which is just a generalized burial ground, and a graveyard which is the consecrated ground surrounding a church. The slate stones that were favored in the 1700’s were mostly mass produced in Boston. As such many have the same designs on them. Today I saw mostly Death Heads (a symbol of rebirth and resurrections) and weeping willows. As usual the stones closest to the church were both the oldest and frequently the most wealthy. You can tell by how large they are as they range from little more than a foot tall to five or six feet. People of wealth in those days often were tied to either religious institutions or the military. You can see several Minute Men buried here who usually have metal markers aside their grave.
Was there anyone of particular note residing here? I actually don’t know. I suspect there are a lot of people that were important to the town back in the day but this was a while ago. I didn’t see any stones that dated any younger than 1901. This… is a forgotten place.
Other Things to See Nearby
That being said there are a few other things to see nearby if you’re there anyway. Directly across the street is the ruins of an old foundation that used to be our old town shelter for both abused animals and battered women. This was not unusual as the Humane Society functioned more as peace officers for domestic abuse situations than they did as animal rescuers although they fulfilled both roles. How much of a need did we have for this little building I have no idea but suffice to say if you were in need you’d be kept there…
Not far from the ruined foundation there’s a tiny park dedicated to our veterans. There’s a few benches, a little memorial, some flags. From here you can look over the town common which used to be used as a livestock exchange and open air market. Today it holds a gazebo used for weddings and one of only two antique livestock scales left in New England which we proudly use every year for the great pumpkin weigh-off. So how big can a pumpkin get? apparently over 2,500 pounds… and let me tell you moving these giant orange beasts is a challenge. Worth coming out just to see that!
And so that’s my little town center. Thanks for stopping by to enjoy it with me. Below are five galleries of photos I took, organized by topic.
Gallery One: Super Dramatic Multiple Stone Photos
Gallery Two: Some Individual Stones
Gallery Three: Artsy Close Ups
Gallery Four: Other Things to See
This structure was used to house carriage horses during church services.
Yesterday I passed this cemetery and noted that I had to go check it out because of all the slate stones I could see from the road. Had I not been running errands I would have stopped right then and there but alas I had to wait until today to satiate my curiosity.
The cemetery is easy to find. It’s on Old Street Road between East Hill Road and Glen Drive. It’s marked by a large green historical marker and has space for a few cars to parallel park in the front of it. The numerous plaques and markers denote this is the resting place of a great many Revolutionary War soldiers, including a famous drummer by the name of William Diamond. It was also Peterborough’s first cemetery and wow, did I hit the jackpot here! This had to be the largest gathering of slate stones I have ever seen. This was a sizable and old cemetery. I would have never guessed Peterborough was this bustling so long ago!
But first I had to get in. A sign out front said the hours and a few limitations (no pets or stone rubbings allowed) but when I got to the gate it seemed to be welded shut. It was weird. There was already a car here so someone was already in the cemetery but I couldn’t see them. How did they get in?? I tugged at the gate. Nothing. I contemplated jumping over the wall but there were too many cars going by and I am rather recognizable with neon orange hair and psychedelic bell bottoms. After getting frustrated I said, “OK. I will be back!”
Later that day I was talking to my mother about all this and she said there had to be a way in. “I bet you that gate opened somehow.” So I put her up to the task and we both headed out for attempt number two. As it turns out the gate isn’t welded shut it’s just stuck – quite stubbornly. With enough wiggling and pulling it finally opened.
By now I had gone online and realized that this cemetery was only 77% photographed and there were five open requests out to find five separate grave markers:
William Wallace (1698 – ??) Jane Mitchel (1721-1791) Jane Chamberlin (1820-1822) Benjamin Chamberlin (??-1819) and William Robbe (1692-1791)
Two of these were babies during their deaths about a hundred years ago. Who is searching for the grave markers of long dead babies!? I mean I understand the adults – it’s probably a genealogy thing, but babies never grew up to have descendants and with almost a hundred years since their death there’s no one in living memory to want to see their memorial either… It sounds really crass but often times the memorials of infants and babies are… ephemeral. They’re small, often lack a lot of information, sometimes they don’t have any writing on them at all. In the case of stillbirths they’re frequently buried without a name. Today the death of a baby is a tragedy but a hundred, two hundred years ago? It was just another every day event.
Possible gravestone stump to the right…
Still – knowing someone was looking I was determined. I WILL FIND YOU! EVEN THE BABIES! I looked to see if there were any more information on any of these individuals and came up pretty empty handed. In fact the information online about everyone here seemed shockingly scarce for what I felt to be quite a historic place. But alas even the revolutionary war soldiers had only the shortest and most cryptic of descriptions online – birth place, birth and death dates, time of service, if they were married or had kids, and nothing more. Pretty basic stuff. I also found no pennies here. These historical figures were…. completely and utterly forgotten.
It was weird. The cemetery seems like it’s kept really well. Some of the stones were repaired or replaced but most were still in pristine condition. This made the missing stones all the more confusing. It was a bright hot day and almost the whole cemetery is in full sunlight with no shade. I started in the corner and made a beeline for the back where I figured the oldest stones may be. And sure enough I found the Robbe family plot which spanned two centuries and seemed to have all the Robbe’s… except for William. Where are you hiding William? Do you even have a stone here? Or did you ever get one? Or did it somehow get destroyed? There was a rock in the ground which I couldn’t tell if it was just another random rock in the ground or a part of a gravestone that no longer had a top. Hmmmm. The mystery thickens!
And by now the mugginess and heat where getting to the both of us so I had to call it a day. I’m not done yet though. I will be back… perhaps with a map of plots in hand to help guide me. And in the meantime I joined Find a Grave and will offer my photos and finds as they are warranted since I am already touring these places anyway. Might as well make myself useful!
There’s also a two trailheads on the same street and well… I am going to need to check those out too…
My final stop today was in the South Cemetery in Wendell Massachusetts. It was really weird. I had a moment of deja vu when I saw it. I don’t know when it was but I know I have passed this cemetery before and I knew then I wanted to see it but if I remember correctly it was another hot summer day and I was coming home from somewhere else, again enjoying the back roads. I didn’t stop then but I knew I had to today. Something there was calling me. So I parked badly on the little grass hill in front of the cemetery and headed in with my camera.
The cemetery is located at a fork in the road. There was traffic going by but I have no idea where they were going. This place was sparsely inhabited. Still, the two cars that drove by slowed down to see what crazy person was out here, alone, in an old cemetery in the woods.
For some reason I was being drawn to the back right corner exactly the opposite of where I parked. I passed by an old crypt, took a quick shot, and then noticed something very odd. Here sitting quietly in the shade were two of the most unusual stones I had ever seen in New England. In fact they weren’t stones at all. One was a wooden cross with another chunk of wood sitting at its base, the appropriate details burned into it and laying atop a circle of random rocks. It was a burial that wouldn’t look out of place in the Old West but here in New England it was odd. Even weirder still was the plot next to it which held no cross, just a lump of wood, again with all the usual data seared into it. This was the first time I’d seen a wooden memorial. It seemed so… impermanent. Was that the point? To be remembered and then forgotten entirely once living memory was lost? A dead bird sat in front of them, perhaps left by a cat. It was a bit eerie, certainly the first time I’ve found a headless animal sitting atop a grave.
I couldn’t stop staring at the memorial. The more I looked the more weird details came to the surface. There was a tiny purse hanging from the cross. Why? This was the last resting place of a man. Was it left by an old girlfriend? I don’t know why but I was very saddened by this particular plot. Whoever was here was young when he died – too young. And it was recently. Only 2015. The epitaph read, “Live life real.” I could have seen him alive and never have known it. And the plot next to him read “matriarch” and was only three years later. Was that his mother? Did she die from a broken heart? My own grandmother outlived two of her five children who died in adulthood and… she was never the same.
I sat staring at these two plots for quite a while. So many questions. There were a lot of other Stebbins here. Clearly the family has been buried here for a long time – but they all got stones. It’s odd. The purse seemed to hint someone was still around who cared. Who visited. But the fact that the marker was so… cheaply made and impermanent just didn’t settle right with me. I wondered if they couldn’t afford a stone. It happens sometimes. I looked them up when I got home but none of my questions were answered. If anything their obituaries just brought up more mystery. I eventually pulled myself away.
Not to far away in the same back row another stone caught my eye. It looked pretty typical until you looked closer at it and realized instead of any of the usual motifs it was a hammer with angel wings and an odd inscription, “In peace, through work; joy” And then I realized this was another person who died young. This just made me wonder more. However this person had literally no traces online having died in 1977. So recently and yet not enough.
By now I was feeling pretty strange. Usually as I walk through rows of stones I do have curiosity but this odd sense of being pulled, this mystery, and the overall sadness was new. I don’t know what or who was there but I don’t think I was alone. I wandered through some of the older markers and made note of some of the prose. One was short and cryptic, “Death sure will come, the time unknown.” That is certainly true of Alonzo Granger who “..died from shock from railway accident when his chest was crushed and his feet were cut off.” Brutal. This mixed with my previous experience here today just made me feel like what I was doing right now – living my life to its fullest, exploring, traveling, learning, meeting new people, it’s all the right thing to be doing. I had a moment of gratitude before I finally left and decided to call it a day. I shall be back to this area. It was far to beautiful and poetic to leave behind forever.
Today I wanted to go exploring in the Petersham area because I don’t know it very well but the few times I have been through it seemed like a gorgeous local. So I packed up the car and hit the road not having the foggiest idea where I’d end up. I drove to Main Street in Petersham just so I’d have some direction and ended up taking a right at the church onto West Street which is how I came across the West Street Cemetery.
It was a small cemetery with a few older stones in the back so I figured I’d check it out and see if there was anything interesting. Years ago I know I helped archive a cemetery nearby although it wasn’t this one. I was delighted to find that in the very back of the cemetery there was evidence someone else was doing similar work – one of the stones had sunken in the ground making the prose at the bottom unreadable but someone had tried to dig some of it up. The stone was of Fanny Hildreth and was ornately carved and made from marble unlike surrounding stones. I never figured out why.
I’m happy to note that according to Find a Grave 97% of this cemetery has been photographed and it appears to be thoroughly archived. I did not come across any stones with pennies on them and I didn’t see any stones that alerted my curiosity further but it was still a sweet little resting place out in the woods for a lot of the oldest families in this town. There was at least one revolutionary war soldier (Moses Sanderson) who served a month in Connecticut.
This cemetery had a few of the old slate stones I adore so much. The prose was as beautiful and at times humbling as I expect these things to be. I noticed a great deal of them had the same carvings as other cemeteries I’d been to which usually means the stones were ordered from carvers in Boston Massachusetts rather than created nearby. I was however pleasantly surprised to find a new design I’d never seen before on two stones, both of children. I do not know its significance, if any.
This is the first of three cemeteries I randomly visited today (including the Northwest Cemetery and the South Cemetery) but first I visited a nice fishing hole and a hiking trail in the middle of nowhere. As such this was a great start to my day.
