A Glass Tombstone

1896

A glass tombstone; that is certainly something unique. Such a grave marker stands in but one place in the United States, and that is the cemetery overlooking the city of Kittanning, Pennsylvania. It has but recently been set up there, over the grave of Mrs. Elizabeth Pepper, of Ford City, by her son, Matthias Pepper.

Not one of the piles of marble and granite attracts so much attention as the piece of polished glass, with clear inscription, which stands on a gentle slope falling slowly from the hilltop.

Matthias Pepper, who had the glass set up, is assistant superintendent at the Ford City factory. The piece used as a grave memorial is a part of a large plate which was made of unusual thickness for the construction of circular panes to cover the portholes of ocean steamships. The practical indestructibility of glass was its quality which suggested to Mr. Pepper its use in the cemetery.

Marble and granite seem to many to be almost eternal in their hardness, but they are far from it, and not at all to be compared with glass. Wind and rain, heat and cold have their effects on stone of any kind, and finally wear away the hardest granite and cause it to crumble. Go into any old graveyard, where stones were erected more than one hundred years ago, and it will be found to be the exception where all the lettering on the monuments can be made out. The stone has crumbled and the outline has been obliterated. No such effect is produced by the weather on glass.

The Pepper monument is of plate glass one inch thick, a foot and a half wide and four feet high. It stands in a mortise cut into a cube of sandstone. The top of the glass is arched. The lettering on it is made by the "sand blast" process, and is distinct. The monument bears this inscription:

In memory of Elizabeth Pepper, of Ford City. Died February 4, 1892. Aged seventy-seven years.
Also William Pepper, husband of the above. Died ——. Aged ——.

From this inscription it may be inferred truly that William Pepper is still living.

This new use for plate glass is likely to become extended, for it has many things to recommend it. The transparency and purity of the material are suggestive and appropriate. It is easily and quickly etched, its cost is not great, and in durability it surpasses any other available material. — Pittsburg Dispatch.

Mortuary Lore: Curious Epitaphs

1900

Clockmaker Expresses Hopes in Hereafter

Collecting epitaphs is not a particularly cheerful sort of hobby, but a well-known Philadelphia business man has acquired the grewsome fad, and is now thoroughly saturated with all sorts of mortuary lore.

Curious epitaphs find their way into print from time to time, many of which bear small traces of authenticity, and these are eagerly sought after by the collector in question, who inserts them in a book which he keeps for that purpose. His great pride, however, is in the inscriptions which he has seen with his own eyes, and copied from tombstones which have come under his own observation. He has traveled extensively, and it doesn't make any difference where he is, whether in an old English cathedral town or a "boom" city of the far west, his first question is, "Where is your most interesting burying-ground?"

While in England last summer he came across a couple of rather curious epitaphs in the old churchyard at Balsover, in Derbyshire. One read as follows: "Here lies in a horizontal position the outside case of Thomas Hindle, clock and watchmaker, who departed this life wound up in hope of being taken in hand by his Maker, and being thoroughly cleaned, repaired and set a-going in the world to come, on the 15th of August, 1836, in the nineteenth year of his age."

The following, from the same churchyard, is a curious instance of economy such as one seldom encounters — that of a man being buried in the same grave with his three wives, and with but one stone to mark their final and collective resting place. Following is the inscription: "Sacred to the memory of Margaret Armstrong, wife of William Armstrong of Balsover Moor, who departed this life Aug. 2, 1835, aged 33 years. Also William Armstrong, who died Dec. 10, 1862, aged 67 years. Also Ann, second wife of the above, who died Feb. 21, 1838, aged 28 years. Also Charlotte, third wife of the above, who died June 4, 1864, aged 42." — Philadelphia Record.

Find Grave of Grandfather of Abe Lincoln

1922

Located in a Church Yard Near Louisville, Kentucky.

Louisville, Ky.,—The grave of Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of the martyred president, has been found in a churchyard near here, in the belief of several Louisvillians who recently have completed an extensive investigation.

The investigators found two stones — their inscriptions blotted away by long exposure to the elements — which they believe mark the grave of the emancipator's grandfather who was killed by Indians in 1786 within sight of his cabin and before the eyes of his three sons.

According to R. C. Ballard Thruston, who made a preliminary investigation of deeds in the Jefferson county courthouse, the examination warrants the belief the land composing the churchyard is part of the Lincoln property, which included 400 acres.

Additional details of the death of the emancipator's grandfather have been revealed by the investigation, it was stated.

When their father fell mortally wounded Mordecai ran to the house and procured a rifle while Josiah darted for a nearby fort to obtain aid. Thomas, then a boy of 9 years, remained with his father.

According to the findings, an Indian seized Thomas and was about to scalp him when Mordecai returned and shot the savage to death. Thomas was released and later became the father of the martyred President.

—The Davenport Democrat and Leader, Davenport, Iowa, April 14, 1922, page 14.

Keep It Grave, Watching Out for Flippant Epitaphs

1922

Censored Tombstones
By Frederic J. Haskin

WASHINGTON. D. C., May 29.— Censorship is now being carried to the very grave. The latest thing in censors, according to a serious minded trade journal which keeps up with tombstone news, is a censor of epitaphs. This official has been appointed in an unnamed English village and entrusted with the job of seeing that graveyard solemnity is not violated by flippant quips and epigrams on the tombstones.

English vicars for a number of years have supervised to some extent tombstone sentiments. It may seem strange that now, when epitaphs are no longer indulged in by poets or poetasters, there should be any great need for a special guardian of tomb- stone dignity. But the dangers it seems, are in the epitaphs which have been perpetrated in the past. Graved on old, moss grown, tottering stones, the verses of a century or two ago oftentimes express sentiments regarding death and the dead that are flippant, irreverent, and in short, unsuited for public perusal in this highly regulated age.

Our attitude toward tombstones undoubtedly has changed. It is not so much that we think more solemnly of death; but rather that we think less of it. The churchyard is seldom the graveyard any longer. Few people think of visiting the cemeteries outside the city when they set out for a Sunday afternoon stroll. Decidedly, the dead are not so much with us as they were a few centuries, or even a few generations, back.

Tombstones Topics of Talk.

Then, tombstones were a live topic. A man expected to have an epitaph written about him, and if there was any fear in his mind that his relatives would not make a good job of it, he wrote the label for his stone himself or hired a professional to write one.

Ben Jonson, Milton, and Pope wrote epitaphs. Shakespeare wrote his own epitaph in a four-line verse of warning to any who might wish to disturb his bones. To dash off a witty epitaph for a friend or enemy was a parlor trick with which kings and courtiers whiled away a dull afternoon.

Thus when Charles II casually asked Rochester to write his epitaph, the courtier thought a minute and produced the following famous lines:

Here lies our mutton-eating king,
Whose word no man relied on;
Who never said a foolish thing,
And did a wise one.

The king took no offense, but set his brains to work and composed a second stanza:

If death could speak, the king would say,
In justice to his crown,
His acts they were the minister's,
His words they were his own.

Even if a man was inadvertently misplaced, he had to have a tombstone and an epitaph, as is shown by the following in an English churchyard:

Underneath this sod lies John Round,
Who was lost in the sea and never was found.

Rhyme of Free Verse.

Epitaphs were correct style and everybody had them. Those individuals whose outstanding deeds and characteristics could not be squeezed into rhymed couplets were gloriously immortalized in free verse. Lady O'Looney's epitaph is a good example:

Here lies the body of
Lady O'Looney,
Great nice of Burke, commonly
Called the sublime,
She was
Bland, passionate, and deeply religious;
Also painted in water-colors,
And sent several pictures to the exhibition.
She was first cousin to Lady Jones,
And of such is the kingdom of heaven.

But those days are gone. Poets no longer specialize in epitaphs. Henpecked husbands get even by some other means than by writing sarcastic verses to go on tombstones. The epitaph, which started off well in this country in the graveyards of Massachusetts, is practically defunct.

Still, the possibilities of epitaph reform, even in this country, should not be overlooked. Like England, we have ample material which should be of interest to censors in our old New England churchyards. The verse which is said to have started the agitation in the English village is on an old stone. We quote it now. In future, it may be permissible to designate it only by four rows of dots:

Here lies the body of Mary Ann Lowder
Who burst from drinking a seldlitz powder,
Called from this world to her heavenly rest,
She should have waited till it effervesced.

Danger of Levity Less.

The danger of the public catching the idea that death is not to be taken seriously is less now, to be sure, than it might have been a few decades back when promenades in the graveyard were a popular outdoor sport. Still, the old grinning, chuckling epitaphs are there, legible under the grime, to corrupt anybody who strays into their neighborhood.

Take the following, for instance, out in Iowa, written on stone for dignified and sober-minded middle westerners to read:

Beneath this stone our baby lays. He neither cries nor hollers He lived just one and twenty days And cost us forty dollars.

Or consider that admired and copied verse by some unknown English poet:

Here lies my wife,
Here lies she.
Hallelujah!
Hallehujee!

The effect of such epitaphs on the public is obviously demoralizing. In the future we may have a national censor of epitaphs to see that covers are made for all epitaphs which do not conform to the national regulations for tombstone literature. Or possibly the epitaph official will gather together a collection of forbidden tombstones and keep them in a locked and guarded graveyard museum.

Anyway, the English village may expect to go down in history as the pioneer in the crusade for preservation of tombstone dignity.

—The Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, Nebraska, June 7, 1922, page 2.