Quaint Epitaphs | Page 2

rags.
EASTPORT.
"Transplanted"
KITTERY--1803.
I lost my life in the raging seas?A sovereign God does as he please.?The Kittery friends did then appear,?And my remains they buried here.
We can but mourn our loss,?Though wretched was his life.?Death took him from the cross,?Erected by his wife.
BATH.
Our life is but a Winter's day.?Some breakfast and away.?Others to dinner stay and are well fed.?The oldest sups and goes to bed.?Large is his debt who lingers out the day,?Who goes the soonest has the least to pay.
John Phillips.
Accidentally shot as a mark of affection by his brother. After life's fever, I sleep well.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
HOLLIS.
Here the old man lies?No one laughs and no one cries?Where he's gone or how he fares?No one knows and no one cares.?But his brother James and his wife Emeline?They were his friends all the time.
Here lies our young and blooming daughter--?Murdered by the cruel and relentless Henry.?When coming home from school he met her,?And with a six self shooter, shot her.
Here lies Cynthia, Stevens' wife?She lived six years in calms and strife.?Death came at last and set her free.?I was glad and so was she.
In youth he was a scholar bright.?In learning he took great delight.?He was a major's only son.?It was by love he was undone.
Here lies old Caleb Ham,?By trade a bum.?When he died the devil cried,?Come, Caleb, come.
PEAK CEMETERY.
Thomas Culbert.
The voice of a stepfather beneath this?Stone is to rest one, shamefully robbed?In life by his wife's son, and Esq Tom?And David Learys wife
(The above is a verbatim copy.)
GUILFORD.
Josiah Haines.
He was a blessing to the saints,?To sinners rich and poor,?He was a kind and worthy man,?He's gone to be no more.?He kept the faith unto the end?And left the world in peace.?He did not for a doctor send?Nor for a hireling priest.
Mrs. Josiah Haines.
Here beneath these marble stones?Sleeps the dust and rests the bones?Of one who lived a Christian life?T'was Haines's--Josiah's wife.?She was a woman full of truth?And feared God from early youth.?And priests and elders did her fight?Because she brought her deeds to light.
PEMBROKE.
Here lies a man never beat by a plan,?Straight was his aim and sure of his game,?Never was a lover but invented a revolver.
JAFFREY.
A free negro, Amos Fortune, settled in Jaffrey more than one hundred years ago, though warned off as a possible pauper, and left one quaint bit of history--his estate, to the town. Part of it bought the communion service still in use (1895.) On the gravestone of his wife is this inscription:--
Sacred to the memory of Violate, by purchase the Slave of Amos Fortune, by marriage his wife, by fidelity his companion and solace, and by his death his widow.
VERMONT.
Our little Jacob has been taken away to bloom in a superior flower pot above.
My wife lies here.?All my tears cannot bring her back;?Therefore, I weep.
This little buttercup was bound to join the heavenly choir.
BURLINGTON.
Beneath this stone our baby lays?He neither crys or hollers.?He lived just one and twenty days,?And cost us forty dollars.
Charity wife of Gideon Bligh?Underneath this stone doth lie?Naught was she e'er known to do?That her husband told her to.
Here lies the wife of brother Thomas,?Whom tyrant death has torn from us,?Her husband never shed a tear,?Until his wife was buried here.?And then he made a fearful rout,?For fear she might find her way out.
He first departed, she a little tried to live without him. Liked it not and died.
His illness lay not in one part?But o'er his frame it spread.?The fatal disease was in his heart?And water in his head.
In memory of Elizabeth Taylor.?Could blooming years and modesty and all thats pleasing to the eye, Against grim death been a defence,?Elizabeth had not gone hence.
Died when young and full of promise?Of whooping cough our Thomas.
She lived with her husband fifty years?And died in the confident hope of a better life.
Stop dear parent cast your eye,?And here you see your children lie.?Though we are gone one day before,?You may be cold in a minute more.
Little Teddy, fare thee well,?Safe from earth in Heaven to dwell.?Almost Cherub here below,?Altogether angel now.
On a tombstone for man and wife.
In sunny days and stormy weather,?In youth, and age, we clung together.?We lived and loved, laughed and cried?Together--and almost together died.
WINDSOR.
Behold! I come as a thief.
Death loves a shining mark.?In this case he had it.
STOWE.
Erected by a widower in memory of his two wives.
This double call is laid to all,?Let none surprise or wonder.?But to the youth it speaks a truth,?In accents loud as thunder.
Stranger pause as you pass by;?My thirteen children with me lie.?See their faces how they shine?Like blossoms on a fruitful vine.
A rum cough carried him off.
Here lies the body of old Uncle David,?Who died in the hope of being sa-ved.?Where he's gone or how he fares,?Nobody knows and nobody cares.
The body that lies buried here?By lightning fell, death's sacrifice,?To him Elijah's fate was given?He