“Michel son of John Spencer
died Jan ye 24th 1756 in ye 10th year of his age.
Death Conquers All
Both young and Old
Tho’ ne’er so wise
Discreet and Bold
In helth and Strength
this youth did Die
in a moment without one Cry.”
And still another perpetuates the record of the same family:
In Memory of
Mr John Spencer Who
Died June ye 24th
1780 in the 70th
Year of his Age
In Memory of Submit
Spencer Daughter of Mr
John and Mrs Mary
Spencer Who Died
Novbr ye 21th 1755 in ye
1st Year of her Age
Oh Cruel Death to fill this
Narrow space In yonder
House Made a vast emty place
Was the child called “Submit” because born a woman! Or did the parents embody in the name their own spiritual history of resignation to the eternal powers?—“to fill this narrow space, in yonder house made a vast empty place.”
Farther up the slope of this God’s Acre a shaft standing high in the soft light mourns the hazards of our passage through the world.
In Memory of Mr.
Jeduthun Goodwin who
Died Feb 13th 1809 Aged
40 Years
Also Mrs. Eunice his
Wife who died August 6th
1802 Aged 33 Years
Dangers stand thick
through all the Ground
To Push us to the Tomb
And fierce diseases
Wait around
To hurry Mortals home
Every village has its tragedy, alas! and that recounted in this following inscription is at least one faithful record of terrifying disaster. Again it seems at variance with the moral order of the world that these quiet fields should witness the terror this tiny memorial hints at. The stone is quite out of plumb and moss-covered, but underneath the lichen it reads:
“Phebe, wife of Ezekiel Markham Died Jyly 14,
1806 Ae 49
Also their 3 Sons Bela, Ciba, and Brainad was
burnt to Death in Oct 1793”
“In the midst of life we are dead”
The mother lived nearly thirteen years after. There is no neighboring record of the father. Perhaps the two migrated after the fearful holocaust, and he only returned to place his wife’s body beside the disfigured remains of her little ungrown men. Bela, Ciba, and Brainard rested lonesomely doubtless those thirteen waiting years, and many a night must their little ghosts have sat among the windflowers and hepaticas of spring, or wandered midst the drifted needles of the pines in the clear moonlight of summer, athirst for the mother’s soul of comfort and courage.
Again in this intaglio “spelt by th’ unlettered Muse” rises the question of the stone-cutter’s knowledge of his mother tongue. The church of the dead villagers still abides. But nowhere are seen the remains of a school-house. Descendants of the cutter of Master Kelsey’s headstone haply had many orders.