Quaint Epitaphs | Page 5

Wales by old Sexton Brown, the once famous sexton of Grace Church, N. Y.
Here lies in a horizontal position the outside case of George Rutlege watch-maker, whose abilities in that line were an honor to his profession.
Integrity was the main-spring of all the actions of his life. Humane, honest and industrious his hands never stopped until they had relieved distress.
He had the art of disposing of his time in such a way that he never went wrong except when set agoing by persons who did not know his key, and even then was easily set right again.
He departed this life wound up in the hope of being taken in hand by his Maker, thoroughly cleaned, regulated and repaired and set going in the world to come.
IN THE SOUTH.
PHILADELPHIA. Christ's Churchyard.
(Written by himself when twenty-three years of age.)
The body of Benjamen Franklin, printer like the cover of an old book its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here food for worms.
Yet the work itself shall not be lost for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition corrected and amended by the author.
Carved on a little stone in a Maryland churchyard, after the name of the dead.
"He held the pall at the funeral of Shakspeare."
BAYFIELD, MISS.
(On a child struck by lightning.)
Struck by thunder.
Stranger pause my tale attend,?And learn the cause of Hannah's end.?Across the world the wind did blow,?She ketched a cold that laid her low.?We shed a lot of tears 'tis true,?But life is short--aged 82.
Here lies my wife in earthly mould,?Who when she lived did naught but scold.?Peace! wake her not, for now she's still,?She had; but now I have my will.
ALEXANDRIA, VA.
To the memory of a female stranger whoes mortal sufferings ended Oct. 14th 1816.
How valued, how loved once, avails thee not?To whom related, or by whom begot.?A heap of dust alone remains of thee,?Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be.
Peter Letig was his name,?Heaven I hope his station,?Baltimore was his dwelling place?And Christ is his salvation.
The milk of human kindness was my own dear cherub wife I'll never find another one as good in all my life.
She bloomed, she blossomed, she decayed,?And under this tree her body we laid.
Mr. James Danner, late of Louisville, having been laid by the side of his four wives, received this touching epitaph:
An excellent husband was this Mr. Danner,?He lived in a thoroughly honorable manner.
He may have had troubles,?But they burst like bubbles,?He's at peace, now with Mary, Jane, Susan and Hannah.
MARYLAND.
Henrietta thou was mild and lovely,?Gentle as a summer breeze;?Pleasant as the air of evening,?When it floats among the trees.?With triumph on her tongue?With radiance on her brow,?She passed to that exalted throng?And shares their glory now.
They were two loving sisters,?Who in this dust do lie.?The very day Annie was buried?Elizabeth did die.
My father and mother were both insane?I inherited the terrible stain.?My grandfather, grandmother, aunts and uncles?Were lunatics all, and yet died of carbuncles.
Here lies the bones of David Jones,?Laid both dead and dumb.?He read a law and plead a cause?But died from drinking rum.
Over the grave of a brave engineer.
Until the brakes are turned on time,?Life's throttle-valve shut down,?He works to pilot in the crew?That wears the martyr's crown.?On schedule time, on upper grade?Along the homeward section,?He lands his train in God's roundhouse?The morn of resurrection.?His time is full, no wages docked,?His name on God's pay roll,?And transportation through to Heaven?A free pass for his soul.
Elizabeth Scott lies buried here.?She was born Nov 20th 1785,?according to the best of her recollection.
TENNESSEE.
She lived a life of virtue and died of the cholera morbus, caused by eating green fruit in hope of a blessed immortality.
Reader, go thou and do likewise.
Sacred to the memory of Henry Harris who died from a kick by a colt in his bowells.
Peacable and quiet, a friend to his father and mother, respected by all who knew him--gone to the world where horses don't kick, where sorrow and weeping are no more.
Here lies my twins as dead as nits?One died of fever the other of fits.
Some have children others none,?Here lies the mother of twenty one.
YAZOO CITY.
Here lie two grandsons of?John Hancock, first signer of the?Declaration of Independence.?(Their names are respectively Geo. M.?and John H. Hancock)?and their eminence hangs on?their having had a grandfather.
UNLOCATED.
Beneath this stone, a lump of clay,?Lies Arabella Young,?Who on the twenty first of May?Began to hold her tongue.
Ebenezer Dockwood aged forty seven,?A miser and a hypocrite and never went to Heaven.
Within this grave do lie.?Back to back my wife and I.?When the last trump the air shall fill,?If she gets up I'll just lie still.
Mammy and I together lived,?Just three years and a half.?She went first, I followed next,?The cow before the calf.
A man had cremated four wives,