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.