"TAPHOPHILIA"

Taphophilia: Having a love of cemeteries
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"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE END