Novemba

 

The Josiah Baker, Jr. stone (1726) in the Trumbull Burying Ground in Lebanon, CT has a great example of r-dropping: "Novemba." If you put your nose right up to the stone, you can see a teeny lower-case r offered as a correction. This stone was almost certainly carved in Obadiah Wheeler's workshop (though it is slightly uncharacteristic in some ways — most Wheeler epitaphs are written in lower-case letters).

The rest of the epitaph also demonstrates creative spelling (and formatting). It reads:

HERE LISE ye BO

DY OF JOSIAH BA

KER jN[?] LEBANoN 

ye SON OF MR: SA

MUEL BAKER OF 

MARSHFIELD He DIED 

NOVEMBAr 27 1726 

AGEED 23 YEARE