Old New England Cemeteries

If hard evidence is wanted that we New Englanders have roots running deep in our rock strewn soil, look no further than our old cemeteries, for we have them in plenty, and whose headstones still bear the bloodless and blind names of our people. Names that harken back long before they stained Boston Harbor with English tea, long before a king’s army of Red Coats marched upon our peaceful shores – names like Joshua Pitts, Ezekiel Clark, Micah Bradford, Noah Crumbe, Esther Cole, and countless similar. Names that carried conviction, hope, and faith strong and resilient as any sturdy oak. The Book, you see, was never far from these God-fearing people, and always an easy reach for a troubled heart. It brought them solace in the darkest nights when life seemed less than certain, less than the faintest flicker of a taper’s flame. The land was new, hard. It needed tilling and care, willing hands to make it their own. Hands now forever idle, forever stilled. They saw work, not as a hardship to wasteful pleasure, but as a mandate, a divine blessing to benefit themselves and others, to be worked out. Laziness for its own sake found no supporters. Life had purpose, a reach. They walked with a sure footing, even when the heavens shook with fury and made them cower with fear and prayer, or when the ground trembled. They learned to wait with patience; it always settled. Now, in their decayed cradles of death, they sleep that mighty sleep we all must lie down to. Yet they still speak to us with strength, hope, and conviction. We are their legacy.These rough slate stones are proof of it.