The most obvious anomaly here is the style, which is anachronistic for the 1790s. By that time, gravestones in Providence, Marblehead, and other well-connected places were moving toward lightly-inscribed urn-and-willow designs. In contrast, the Ephraim Terry stone has a deeply-carved, sensuous design and a curvy outline, indicating that it derives from older styles. This isn't surprising because Lebanon was (and is) a small, rural hamlet, not an urban center, so the aesthetic sense may have been a bit provincial. The style of the face and pointy wings indicate that this stone was carved by a member of the Manning family, possibly one of Josiah Manning's sons, Rockwell or Frederick, or a member of his workshop. For more info on the Mannings, see Allan I. Ludwig's Graven Images: New England Stonecarving and its Symbols, 1650-1815, page 409.
But the thing that interested me most was the inscription, which contains a curious misspelling of "departed" as "depated" with the "r" added in later:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWwIgCKLUnEVSDn60s7vam1hgUsgrRzL5zyeCCoiIjDkX73MpAug0M2kkYAVANqktJHZxrQO8HuVorvyGvbTnfO6cBe14B_hCLIZctmJLBk4xquTN99g2frBVH03h3lngtZxQRoTzVsAo/s400/9-9-3big.jpg)
One last interesting thing: if the carvings preserve a pronunciation, it probably means that the carvers may have been literate enough to write phonetically, and someone was literate enough to catch a spelling error.
Update:
I found another one! This example is from the Brooklyn, Connecticut cemetery next to the fair grounds. Jane Tyler "Depated" this life in 1741.
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