Epitaphs To Remember: Remarkable Inscriptions from New England Gravestones

Janet Greene

This volume collects 215 gravestone epitaphs from the six New England states, frequently conveying elegiac verse of a sardonic bent. Examples include: The Reverend Nathan Noyes, 1808, Windham, Vermont:
“Look here and view affliction’s favorite son
For Misfortune through all my life has run
Hard perfection’s iron yoke I bore
Till I have seen of gloomy years, three score.
Now shout in vain, ye persecuting throng
I’m far beyond the poison of your song
Live and live happy while my grave you view
This tongue, now cold, has often prayed for you.”
While not necessarily a page turner, Epitaphs To Remember’s greatest success lies in the anthropological sense, offering a glimpse into what 300 years of New Englanders wanted to perpetuate as their final commentary on this mortal coil. JAT

Publisher: Hood
Paperback: 103 pages
Illustrated