John Hanson 11/28/23 John Hanson 11/28/23

Walker Children

Here is another image from my friend and colleague Bob Drinkwater, the gravestones of three little brothers in Greenfield MA, who died within 10 days of each other of a sudden contagion. Edward Young’s Night Thoughts is once again the source text for the epitaph.

John Hanson 11/16/23 John Hanson 11/16/23

Ebenezer Hall

My friend and colleague Bob Drinkwater shared this splendidly carved stone from Mill River, MA. The epitaph is an interesting late variation on the classic message “prepare for death”, and the design and execution of the carving is remarkable.

John Hanson 10/14/23 John Hanson 10/14/23

Marcy White

The epitaph on stone in the historic Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in Boston can be found on many other early monuments around New England. The source is a simple little couplet from a once-popular but now largely forgotten rendition of the Book of Psalms.

John Hanson 6/28/23 John Hanson 6/28/23

Deacon William Boies

My friend and colleague Bob Drinkwater shared a remarkable stone with a distinguished epitaph from the little hilltop town of Blandford, MA.

John Hanson 3/21/23 John Hanson 3/21/23

Martha Pepper

In Norwich CT my friends the McKees found another splendidly-carved stone whose epitaph is taken from an high accomplished woman poet, an early advocate of women’s rights, who should be better-known today.

John Hanson 1/30/23 John Hanson 1/30/23

Aaron Bowers

In Pepperell MA there is a stone that combines a vivid illustration of a child’s death with a bespoke epitaph, based on a Bible verse but adapted in an intriguing way by some now-unknown hand.

John Hanson 12/4/22 John Hanson 12/4/22

Ramick Knowles

I recently gave a talk to in Otis, MA, on the epitaphs in their old burial grounds. Here is a stone with a telling verse from a hymnodist I have not seen elsewhere.

John Hanson 11/13/22 John Hanson 11/13/22

Phinehas Smith

This stone in Granby MA, now held up by a rope tying it to another headstone, provides a noteworthy articulation of contemporary Puritan religious belief. I found the same epitaph chosen not far away in Hadley in 1791 (Jonathan Warner).

John Hanson 9/26/22 John Hanson 9/26/22

Love Wells

A fine monument in the Lenox MA Church on the Hill Cemetery beautifully integrates, in its imagery and its text, the old Calvinist warning to prepare for death with a fine optimistic assertion of the deceased’s virtue and heavenly reward.

John Hanson 8/21/22 John Hanson 8/21/22

John Treat

A fine stone in Milford CT combines a remarkably comprehensive description of the progress of a virtuous Congregationalist soul after death with an excerpt from a pioneering Black woman poet.

John Hanson 7/11/22 John Hanson 7/11/22

John Worthington

A splendid table-tomb in Springfield, MA has an epitaph from Edward Young — which in turn may well be linked to a book in the deceased’s library.

John Hanson 1/28/22 John Hanson 1/28/22

Varney and John Putnam

In New Salem MA, on a ridge above the Quabbin Reservoir, an anonymous writer re-worked the common “recurring but unattributed” epitaph on the grave of two brothers who died a month apart, probably of some contagion. The carving is in a very distinctive, incredibly abstract style.

John Hanson 11/22/21 John Hanson 11/22/21

Caroline Hunt and Mary Mather

Here are a pair of stones from Otis, Massachusetts, that feature an interesting combination of the old, Classic, Calvinist “as you are now so once was I” message with a gentler, melancholy carving of the urn-and-willow motif. The first is from East Otis Cemetery, the second from the Norton Cemetery.

John Hanson 10/14/21 John Hanson 10/14/21

Benjamin Gilbert

This stone from North Brookfield Massachusetts combines an epitaph comprised of rich set of Biblical references, with splendid carving work of death and resurrection, to create a remarkably integrated work of art.

John Hanson 8/18/21 John Hanson 8/18/21

Mehetebel Adams

A stone in Canterbury, Connecticut, is inscribed with a short passage that conveys the essential argument of Edward Young’s monumental poem Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality.

John Hanson 7/26/21 John Hanson 7/26/21

Margaret Cole

My good friend Betsy McKee shared a beautifully-carved stone from Sutton Center, near Worcester, whose superb epitaph (recurring-but-unattributed) bids us to recall, and reflect on, the virtues of exemplary women in the Bible.

John Hanson 7/1/21 John Hanson 7/1/21

Asahel Gunn

The little Pioneer Valley town of Montague, MA, has a remarkable stone with an excerpt from a memorable hymn by an extraordinary writer.

John Hanson 6/17/21 John Hanson 6/17/21

James Barnerd

Here is another image that I owe to Betsy McKee, this one from Sleepy Hollow in New York. This is a bit outside my usual research grounds in New England. But it provides a fascinating example of an anonymous local hand editing a recurring-but-unattributed epitaph — so fascinating that I have to share it!

John Hanson 6/1/21 John Hanson 6/1/21

Eliza Dow

My friend Betsy McKee shared this elegantly-carved stone from the Old Cemetery in Eastford, CT. Its epitaph verse introduced me to a work of American poetry I had never encountered before.

John Hanson 4/24/21 John Hanson 4/24/21

Rebekah Hunt

Here is an admirable epitaph from Concord, Massachusetts. This is a bit further east, and closer to a big city, than my usual collecting. But I have been studying a Concord-based carver, Ithamar Spauldin, who left an account book detailing everything about his business — except, maddeningly, the source of his epitaph texts! In this case, I am fairly certain he was given this bespoke memorial to carve.

John G.S. Hanson