Thursday, May 20, 2010

Gravestone of the Day: Ann Erinton

Ann Erinton, 1653, Cambridge, MA
HERE LIES Ye BODY OF ANN
ERINTON AGED 77 YRS DECD
DECEMR 25 1653

I think there's a good chance that this stone is backdated. It looks very much like these stones from the 1670s and 1680s:

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Was backdating a common practice?

And I LOVE the gravestone of the day. They're beautiful.

Robert J. said...

Forbes discusses the Ann Erinton stone as one of the very earliest in New England and a probable example of the work of "the stonecutter of Boston." She notes that we have to go 20 years ahead to find similar stones, but for some reason doesn't suggest that this one might be backdated. That seems like a perfectly reasonable conjecture to me.

—RJO