From A
Book of Country Things by Barrows Mussey as told by Walter Needham:
When my
helper on John Gale's roof talked about tombstones, he wasn't being so foolish
as maybe he thought. I suppose you might call it the last use a man would ever
have for slate; anyway, there's some beautiful tombstones made out of Guilford
slate.
On the road
from Algiers to Guilford Center, just opposite the Creamery Bridge (before you
get to Brandy Bridge, which is named from the keg they used to encourage the
workmen with when they was building the original wooden bridge), you'll find a
high bank that's just covered thick with wild strawberries in the spring.
There's a sort of scar going slantways up the bank, and that's what's left of
the burial road to the Old North Cemetery in Guilford.
I go up
there once in a while and look things over. There's a few Civil War veterans in
the new part, over near the big maple, but I should guess there was more from
the Revolution. Some of the oldest stones is like the ones you see in the old
Boston burying grounds, with those jack-o'-lantern cherubs that have wings for
ears, and "Here lyes" is spelled with a y.
I guess I
must be kind of unreligious, like Gramp, because I pulled up some of the
tombstones to set them straighter, and I found out stoneworking hasn't changed
much. One stone, not the regular Guilford slate but more of a marble, was
shaped kind of fancy on top, with a big semi-circle sticking out and two little
ears, like. When I pulled it up I found the fellow had originally worked the
other end, and something went wrong, so he just turned the stone around and
started over.
But the ones
I always notice more than any is nice clean Guilford slate, older than the
fancy one but not weathered so much as the ones with the jack-o'lanterns, and
evidently all cut by the same fellow around 1815 or 1820. You can recognize his
hand.
I know he
was proud of his work for two reasons. One thing, when I pulled up some of his
stones I found that down below the ground level he'd cut his guildmark. His
stones had some real nice designs, and his lettering was good, but he couldn't
spell worth a cent.
The other
way I know for sure this fellow took pride in his art is that he wouldn't
throwaway a nice stone with borders and designs on it just for a few misspelled
words. If he merely put the wrong letter in the deceased's name, for instance,
he'd just carve a different letter above it.
When he
struck a tough word like February, and carved it Febary, and decided that was
wrong, he just put a caret mark after the b, and a nice neat u above the line,
and he was satisfied.
I copied off
one of this fellow's inscriptions:
The youth is gone
His sole is fled
His body is num
bered with the dead.
His bounds is sot
He can not pas
There is not a sand left in his glas.