Cemeteries are familiar places to me. A common family pastime when I was growing up was to stop in an old cemetery and look at the stones. As a pastor I spend a great deal of time in cemeteries, relatively speaking. I am comfortable in them, and at times I can almost feel the presence of the departed souls whose bodies lie beneath the earth.
One cemetery I visited is in Littleton Common. The oldest stones date back to the 1720s. The other is in Billerica. Both are very old communities, and these two cemeteries reflect that long history.
I'm including some of the many pictures I took. The first one is from the Billerica cemetery. This stone was in the oldest part of the cemetery which dated from the 1690's to the 1720's. The style of the stones reflected this time period, being fairly small in size with rather cramped winged skulls, and sometimes elaborate decoration around the skulls. Several stones were not carved by professional stone cutters but were obviously home made. Only one had a date (1736) while the others had initials and no other carving. This particular stone has the initials "L.F." without any indication who this was. Some families resorted to homemade stones either because professionally carved stones were expensive or because the stone cutter was far away, or both.
The next stone is in Littleton, Mass. Similar stones appear across northeastern Massachusetts. They generally date from the 1720's through the 1760's, and feature a simple folk art-style face with rosettes and other simple decorations. I suspect that the origins of the decorations go back to pre-Christian Anglo Saxon England, but I don't know for sure.
The two small stones above with winged skulls date from 1719 (top) and 1694 (bottom). If you look closely under the skull on the top stone you will see an hourglass under the lichen. To the left and right of the hourglass are the inscriptions "Memento Mori" ("Remember Death") and "Fugit Hora" ("The hours fly"). Stones from this time period were intended to be reminders that life comes to an end.
To the right is the top part of the gravestone of the Rev. Samuel Ruggles in Bilerica, who died in 1749. Considering this stone likely dates from the 1760's, it probably replaced an earlier stone. The notable feature of this stone is the portrait carved at the top. This is one of two such stones in the Billerica cemetery, carved by the same hand. The lengthy inscription is in Latin and praises his gifts as a pastor. The Latin inscription also makes a rather obvious statement that if the reader isn't educated enough to read Latin then he/she shouldn't bother.
To the left is another beautiful slate stonein Littleton, probably carved by the same person as the Ruggles stone. Dating from 1769 it sports a very finely carved angel with an hourglass and the text "Memento Mori" above.
Below is another winged angel in Littleton from 1779. The striking head of the angel was a hallmark of a family in northern Massachusetts whose name escapes me.
The last stone for now is also in Littleton, carved by the same family as the angel to the right. This stone marks the grave of a five year old girl who died in 1768. Children's graves are all too common in cemeteries from this period. I have seen graves of children of one family who all died within a few weeks of one another. Sometimes an entire generation in one family would be wiped out in that way. It is impossible to even begin to understand the parents' grief.
