Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Gravestone of the Day: Emely Whitney

Emely Whitney, 1813, Wrentham, MA
In memory of
Emely Whitney, Dautr. of
Mr. Nathan & Mrs. Priscilla
Fischer; who died April 14th.
1813. Aged 13 Weeks.
Why so hasty, little stranger,
To be gone from earth away?
True, it is a world of danger,
Many ills attend thee here;
Yet maternal love solicits,
And invites thy longer stay.

Google cannot find any other instances of this verse, meaning that it may be an original composition. If it is, it is one of the better efforts I have seen lately.

2 comments:

Robert J. said...

Reminiscent of Emily Dickinson's famous "cookie jar" verse in memory of her eight year old nephew, Gilbert:

Climbing to reach the costly Hearts
To which he gave the worth,
He broke them; fearing punishment
He ran away from Earth—

Jim Blachowicz said...

I would guess that the lettering on this stone was cut by the same man who lettered the Butterworth children's stone (your last post). The "g," "a" & "y" are all quite close even with the years intervening between these 2 stones. As for who this was: The urn is characteristic of the Fisher/Farrington shop whose work is all around this area; but there were at least 5 Fishers in this shop, and perhaps more who worked into the 1800s. I don't really know these guys...