Wednesday, September 24, 2008

101 Ways, Part 39: Breathed Her Soul Away into Her Saviour's Arms

For a brief intro to the "101 Ways to Say 'Died'" series, click here.

My, but those Newburyport-ers were verbose. Here is the bizarre and prolix epitaph of Mary McHard:
Sacred to the Memory
of Mrs. MARY McHARD
the virtuous & amiable Consort of
CAPt. WILLIAM McHARD
of NewburyPort who amidst the
laudable exertions of a very useful
& desireable Life in which her
Christian Profession was well adorned
and a fair copy of every social vir-
tue displayed was in a state of
health suddenly summoned to
the Skies and snatched from ye eager
embraces of her friends (and the
throbbing hearts of her disconso-
late family confessed their fairest
prospects of sublunary bliss were
in one moment dashed) by swal-
lowing a pea at her own table,
whence in a few hours she sweetly
breathed her Soul away into her
SAVIOUR'S arms on the 8th day
of March A.D. 1780 AEtatis 47.

Photo available at A Very Grave Matter.
I attempted to get my own photo, but the Newburyport cemetery is a weird, west-facing cemetery with lots of trees and I was never able to figure out the right lighting.

1 comment:

Robert J. said...

Somehow choking on a pea and then sweetly breathing her soul away don't seem to match.

That looks like a Park workshop stone again -- a wordier special commission that crammed in a lot of text. The one on the right is more typical of their output in the 1770s.

The gravematter.com site is a wonderful collection indeed.