few weeks back we were heading home from a beautiful ride along the shore, around gloucester and rockport, an hour away from boston. we happened to drive by a cemetery and stopped to have a look. as you can see, the cemetery faces the ocean. it was just a small cemetery on a piece of grass, in between houses, and most of the stones were very old (i think the cemetery dates from 1630!), named the "old first parish burial ground". the late afternoon sun was still warm and i really liked to walk around this cemetery. most stones had interesting, down to earth inscriptions. some were hard to read, but it was really worth it to take a moment and decipher them. others, like the one above, were, given their age,very well readable. taking a readable picture ofcourse was yet another problem.... :)
the above stone belongs to the grave of ebenezer, died in 1793, aged only 1 year and 3 months. son of john v, and hannah cleaveland (i found it funny that when cleaveland didnt fit on the stone, they just put the remaining letters above; i saw this on several stones on this cemetery). and then the epitaph; "come mortal man, cast an eye, read your doom, prepare to die".
i have collected a few now, and i guess every now and then i will show you one. (unfortunately, i couldnt find anything else about ebenezer or his parents...)
a collection of taphophiles can be found here.
