From Susan Safford's "Quaint Epitaphs"

"Quaint Epitaphs"
COLLECTED BY

Susan Darling Safford.

Copyright, 1895,

My wife lies here.
All my tears cannot bring her back;
Therefore, I weep.

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.

Behold! I come as a thief.

A rum cough carried him off.

Here lies the body of old Uncle David,
Who died in the hope of being sa-ved.
Where he's gone or how he fares,
Nobody knows and nobody cares.

I was somebody—who? is no business of yours.

Pious.

Open thine eyes Lord
I come! I come!

Here lies the body of Samuel Proctor
Who lived and died without a doctor.

When I am dead and in my grave
And all my bones are rotten,
If this you see, remember me,
Nor let me be forgotton.

Under these stones lies three children dear;
Two are burried at Taunton and I lie here.

One truth is certain when this life is o'er,
Man dies to live and lives to die no more.

Submit, submitted to her heavenly King
Being a flower of the etheral Spring—
Near three years old she died—In Heaven to wait
The year was sixteen hundred forty eight.

John and Lydia, that blooming pair,
A whale killed him and her body lies here.

A blacksmith's epitaph composed by himself.

My sledge and hammer lie reclined,
My bellows too have lost their wind,
My fire's extinct, my forge decayed,
And in the dust my vice is laid.
My iron spent, my coal is gone,
My nails are drove—my work is done.

Indulgent world I bid adieu.
Farewell, dear friends, farewell to you.
No more kindness can I show,
To any creature here below.
I am invited to my tomb,
To sleep awhile till Jesus come.


Here lies the body of Obadiah Wilkinson

And Ruth, his wife.

Their warfare is accomplished.

I go to meet my brother.

He got a fish bone in his throat
And then he sang an angel's note.

This corpse
is
Phebe Thorps.

To the memory of
Susan Mum.

Silence is wisdom.

Reader, go thou and do likewise.

Some have children others none,
Here lies the mother of twenty one.

He heard the angels calling him,
From the celestial shore.
He flopped his wings and away he flew
To make one angel more.

A zealous locksmith died of late,
And did not enter Heaven's gate.
But stood without and would not knock
Because he meant to pick the lock.



Here lies Jane Smith,
Wife of Thomas Smith, Marble Cutter.

This monument was erected by her husband as a tribute to her memory and a specimen of his work.

Monuments of this same style are two hundred and fifty dollars.



Our papa dear has gone to Heaven
To make arrangements for eleven.

Here lies Ann Mann.
She lived an old maid
But died an old Mann.

Beneath this monumental stone
Lies half a ton of flesh and bone.




Shakspeare.

Good friends for Jesus' sake forbear
To stir the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man who spares these stones
And cursed be he who moves my bones.



She lived with her husband fifty years
And died in the confident hope of a better life.

Here lies the body of John Mound
Lost at sea and never found.