Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Gravestone of the Day: John Marsh

John Marsh, 1734, Haverhill, MA
HERE LYES BURIED the
BODY OF DEACON IOHN
MARSH A MAN OF HONESt
REPORt AND WISDOM
tHAt WAS PURE AND
PEACEABLE WHO DIED
NOUEMr ye 24 1734 &
IN ye 71st YEAR OF HIS AGE

I am not sure how to transcribe Mullicken's letters. He makes two versions of the letter A, but both are as tall as capital letters. Are the Ts lowercase?

3 comments:

Roy said...

Yup, the Ts are lower case. Interesting combination; I've seen this not-exactly-consistent mixing of cases before. Who is this carver?

Caitlin GD Hopkins said...

The carver is Robert Mullicken or one of his sons. I find this lettering interesting because, unlike the carver of the Abraham Geal stone, Mullicken clearly knew how to make two different versions of the letter A, yet he did not seem to use one as lower and one as upper case. He may have only known how to make one kind of T.

Robert J. said...

A lovely jumble of cases. The interesting question would be whether he was consistent over time, or just random from stone to stone. The N's are all cap-height but lower-case in form. He uses two E/e's also, but from this one sample that could be a medial/final distinction.

—RJO