Taphophile: One who loves cemeteries
Hey all you Taphophiles out there!! I thought it might be deadly fun to share with you some information about cemeteries and death, as well as a sampling of some epitaphs that I culled out of two books that I've recently gone through:
1. Over Their Dead Bodies - Yankee Epitaphs & History
2. Stones and Bones of New England
The word "cemetery" comes from the Greek and means "sleeping place".
Some of the historical beliefs associated with cemeteries and death are listed below followed by a selection of epitaphs, which is essentially the inscriptions left on gravestones. These are only a very few of those I read - many are sad, some are funny, some caustic, many are religious and a few are like someone just wanting to get the last word in.
If you choose to make a comment on this blog I challenge you to include what you think might be cool epitaph for you or someone you know or love.
For instance, one I have been working on for myself might go like this:
"Many thanks for stopping by
But I'm no longer here.
Our reunion is comign nigh,
So please don't shed a tear.
My body needed this rest
and my spirit is soaring free
I've given this life my best
now unfettered I can be. "
Or, something a little more to the point might be:
"She was right - I should have listened"
HISTORICAL BELIEFS:
"In a Christian graveyard, bodies are buried with the head to the WEST and the feet to the EAST but the basic division has always been between NORTH and SOUTH. The left-hand side of the altar (NORTH) was called the gospel side for sinners, the right-hand (SOUTH) was the epistle side for the righteous. So the unclean dead were buried to the north side of the graveyard." (Nigel Barley - "Grave Matters")
"To place the corpse face downwards has a special significance. An old superstition has it that an infant buried in this manner - if a first born child - will prevent any further additions to the family. This mode of burial was also held to be a means of preventing trouble from a witch after death." (Bertram Puckle - "Funeral Customs")
"In Ireland if a funeral procession passes a church on the way to the cemetery, the mourners must circle the church no fewer than three times before proceeding to the graveyard, or else the corpse and pallbearers will be cursed."
"Taking a dead person out of a house, tent or hut through the usual exit was thought to be dangerous. People believed the dead must not use the same door as the living, or the sickness might rub off on the doorway. Some people even built special doors in their houses for the dead. Such doors, in old Italy and Denmark, kept the regular doorway free from the infection of the dead." (Ann Warren Turner - "Houses for the Dead"
"An eccentric person named Richard Hull was buried on horseback upside down, in order that he might have the advantage of position on the Day of Judgment, when according to a once popular notion, the world would be reversed." (Bertram Puckle - "Funeral Customs")
EPITAPHS
Coventry Conn:
"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country"
(who is the famous person buried in this grave?)
Hartford Conn:
"Well - Sick - Dead in one hour's space"
Milford Conn:
I warn all friends, both old and young, not to live life as I have done"
Milford Conn:
"Molly tho pleasant in her day
Was suddenly seized and sent away
How soon she's ripe How soon she's rotten
Sent to her grave and soon forgotten"
Bangor Maine:
"Poor Martha Snell, Her's gone away
Her would if her could, but her couldn't stay,
Her had two bad legs and a badish cough
But her legs it was that carried her off."
Old North Cemetery - Nantucket Mass:
"Under the sod
Under the trees
Lies the body of Jonathan Pease
He is not here
But only his pod
He has shelled out his peas
And gone to his God"
Burlington Mass:
"Sacred to the memory of Anthony Drake,
Who died for peace and quietness sake;
His wife was constantly scolding and scoffin',
So he sought repose in a twelve-dollar coffin"
Marlboro, NH
"The land I cleared is now my grave
Think well my friends how you behave"
A fisherman's epitaph on Block Island RI
"He's done a 'catching cod
And gone to meet his God"
Bennington, Vt - The poet Robert Frost is buried in the Old Bennington Cemetery. The epitaph, which Frost wrote for himself follows:
"I had a lover's quarrel with the world"
Cheshire Conn:
"He that was sweet to my Repose
Now is become a stink under my Nose
This is said of me
So it will be said of thee"
Dunstable Mass
"Life is a blessing can't be sold
The Ransom is too high,
Justice will ne'er be brib'd with gold
That man may never die.
O see the Foolish & the Brave
Quit their possessions, close their eyes
And hasten to the Grave."
Litchfield Conn
"Here lies the body of Mrs. Mary wife
Of Dea. John Buel Esq. She died
Nove 4 1768 AEtat 90
Having had 13 children
101 grand-children
274 great-grand-children
49 great-great-grand-children
410 total. 336 survived her"
Pownal Vt
"Here lies as silent clay
Miss Arabella Young
Who on the 21st of May
1771
Began to hold her tongue"
Colchester Conn
"He was a man of invention great
Above all that lived nigh
But he could not invent to live
When God called him to die"
Burlington NJ
"Here lies the body of Susan Lowder
Who burst while drinking a Sedlitz Powder.
Called from this world to her heavenly rest
She should have waited till it effervesced"
Winslow Maine - In memory of Beza. Wood
"Here lies one Wood
Enclosed in wood
One Wood
Within another.
The outer wood
Is very good:
We cannot praise
The other."
Plymouth Mass
"Shed not for her the bitter tear
Nor give the heart to vain regret
'Tis but the casket that lies here
The gem that filled it sparkles yet."
Ryegate, Vermont
"I lived on earth
I died on Earth
In Earth I am interred
All that have life
Are sure of Death
The rest may be inferred"
Fairfax Va
"O fatal gun, why was it he
That you should kill so dead?
Why didn't you go off just a little high
And fire above his head."
Hardwick, Vt
"She always did her best,
He never did"
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THE END
