Saturday, August 16, 2008

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

No comments: