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: 2023-08-21 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-12 04:06 pm (UTC)Also, some informal, super old graves get assimilated into other properties over time; Boston's Arnold Arboretum has roughly a dozen graves hidden in it, out of the way but not too difficult to chase down. So, while Mt. Auburn and Forest Hills are graveyard parks, the Arboretum is a park that just HAPPENS to have a few really old graves in it. Come for the bonsai, stay for the dead people!
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Date: 2023-09-20 08:36 pm (UTC)