Salem Cemetery stuff!
Aug. 18th, 2023 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeSneak: On Wednesday, we took advantage of the cheap rail tickets to go on an adventure (day trip) to Salem, MA with sinistmer ! We did a lot of fun things, and we visited two old cemeteries. One, which had the memorial to witch hunt victims, was crammed with people and watched like hawks. You couldn't touch anything or leave the officially sanctioned paths. The second graveyard, even though it was only a few blocks away, was totally deserted; only two people wandered in the whole time we were there, and they left pretty quickly. You could go anywhere, touch anything, so us and Sinistmer climbed a really cool tree and had fun looking at all the old epitaphs!
The best name we found in that graveyard was Ms. Silence Hobart. (There was also a Prudy, which we assume is short for Prudence.) And here are the two best epitaphs!
"There's nothing in this world so trying
As to see our children dying." (1811, I unfortunately didn't write which children's stone it was)
"Come hither youth and cast an eye
Come read your doom, prepare to die
Although you are young yet, die you must
One day like me return to dust." (Catherine Shed, d. 7/27/1813)
Then there was Abner Hill, who died 10/25/1806 and "whose Death was caus'd by his falling from a building when employ'd in the business of life." Plot twist! We expected that sentence to end with "roofing" or "building" or something, but saying he was "employ'd in the business of life" makes it sound like he was philosophizing on a rooftop... or, Mori says, trying to rob someone in a penthouse.
sinistmer ! We did a lot of fun things, and we visited two old cemeteries. One, which had the memorial to witch hunt victims, was crammed with people and watched like hawks. You couldn't touch anything or leave the officially sanctioned paths. The second graveyard, even though it was only a few blocks away, was totally deserted; only two people wandered in the whole time we were there, and they left pretty quickly. You could go anywhere, touch anything, so us and Sinistmer climbed a really cool tree and had fun looking at all the old epitaphs!The best name we found in that graveyard was Ms. Silence Hobart. (There was also a Prudy, which we assume is short for Prudence.) And here are the two best epitaphs!
"There's nothing in this world so trying
As to see our children dying." (1811, I unfortunately didn't write which children's stone it was)
"Come hither youth and cast an eye
Come read your doom, prepare to die
Although you are young yet, die you must
One day like me return to dust." (Catherine Shed, d. 7/27/1813)
Then there was Abner Hill, who died 10/25/1806 and "whose Death was caus'd by his falling from a building when employ'd in the business of life." Plot twist! We expected that sentence to end with "roofing" or "building" or something, but saying he was "employ'd in the business of life" makes it sound like he was philosophizing on a rooftop... or, Mori says, trying to rob someone in a penthouse.
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Date: 2023-08-19 05:53 am (UTC)Some of the favourite things about old graveyards over here is how artistic older headstones can be, and the process by which they become part of the landscape. Lichens and moss colonising the old stones, filling the cracks with thriving green things, and melding it back into earth.
- White (he/him)
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Date: 2023-08-19 04:15 pm (UTC)Mori: the difference was one graveyard was part of the whole witch trials tourist bomb, and the other was not. The quiet one post-dated the witch hunt, and thus wasn't fit into the tourist branding. (Salem goes BALLS-OUT for witches.) The busy one had the memorial for the victims, and also had graves of various people associated with them, so there were guided tours and everything. We aren't really into that aspect of graveyard visiting, so it was wasted on us. (We're there because we like looking at the names, epitaphs, art motifs, and evolution in materials and design over time. The only time we've gone hunting stones for specific PEOPLE was when we went a-hunting a couple old abolitionists' stones in Forest Hills.)