"Remember Me As You Pass By"

Most people who are familiar with old American gravestones know the old verse,

Remember me as you pass by,

As you are now, so once was I,

As I am now, so you must be,

Prepare for death and follow me.

In my mind, I have always associated that verse with the oldest of New England gravestones - the ones covered with imps and hourglasses and scythe-wielding skeletons. It just seems like a Puritan-with-a-capital-P sort of sentiment. Douglas Keister, author of Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography, tells us that this verse, "and its variants are the most common ones found on Colonial New England gravestones" (132). Keister is not alone in this opinion.

Yet, I have not been able to find this verse on a 17th- or early-18th-century gravestone anywhere in North America. The oldest American example I can find dates from 1772, but the transcription makes it hard to tell whether the verse appears on a joint stone erected in 1780 or two side-by-side stones erected in 1772 and 1780. A variant lacking the "prepare for death" line can be found on the Elisha Doane gravestone (1759) in Wellfleet, MA (transcription here). The Benjamin Scudder stone in Westfield, New Jersey, sometimes cited as an early example (1708), is actually from 1798 (see editor's note here and Benjamin Scudder's death record here).

How old is the "remember me" verse really? And when/how did it come to America?

An 1850 edition of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register cites the Canterbury tomb of Edward the Black Prince (1330-1376) as the source of the verse. Edward's epitaph was originally written in Norman French, but was at some point translated into English:

Whoso thou be that passeth by;
Where these corps entombed lie:
Understand what I shall say,
As at this time speak I may.
Such as thou art, sometime was I,
Such as I am, such shalt thou be.

Edward's epitaph, though it contains some of the sentiments found in the later poem, does not exhort the visitor to, "prepare for death and follow me." Variations on the "remember me" verse seem to have been known in 17th-century Scotland: I found one example of a version from Perthshire, Scotland in 1666:

As. ye. ar. nou
So. onc. vas. Ay
As. Ay. am. so. sal
Ye. be. Remembre
Man. that. thou
Mist. dei.

(transcription third-hand via Texas Graveyards)

I've been puttering around on the internet for days now, and, from what I can tell, that macabre little rhyme was not known in American mortuary culture before 1750. Preliminary research indicates that it became popular in the 1780-1830 period and was used throughout the 19th and into the 20th century. The Federal Writer's project found the verse used in Indiana between 1856 and 1914.

A sample of gravestones with the "remember me" verse:

• Jemima Killiam, Enfield, CT, 1780
• Hannah Cole, Lovettsville, VA, 1788
• Betty Gannett, Bridgewater, MA, 1803
• Cornelia Beardsley, Stratford, CT, 1818
• unnamed, Julian Creek, TX, 1863
• Mary Leyde, Eighty-Four, PA, 1888
• John Corley, Alabama, 1913

Does anyone have an example of a pre-1750 version of this poem in America? I'm not asking that snarkily - I am really interested in finding the earliest possible examples and will keep looking. At the moment, I am leaning toward thinking that this verse is NOT a Puritan-American favorite, but rather a gothic/medieval revival favorite.

Ovid at Copp's Hill

I always enjoy finding out what early New Englanders were reading by seeing what they quote on their gravestones.

While searching through the Farber Collection recently, I happened across the Joseph Farnum stone from Copp's Hill (1678), which features a quotation from Ovid's Metamorphoses:

In English, it says something along the lines of, "But indeed, one must ever wait for the last day of a man's life, and call no one happy until he is dead and buried."

A Very Confusing Epitaph

I found a mystery in Groton, MA last weekend. See what you can make of this epitaph:

Usually, I would interpret the "he" of "he was educated at Harvard College" as referring back to Col. John Bulkley, but that cannot be. He can't have graduated from Harvard in 1769 and died in 1772 at age 69. I've looked through Sibley's Harvard Grads and the oldest students were in their early 20s.

I can only assume that the second half of the epitaph refers to the younger John Bulkley (b. 1749), who was indeed a member of Harvard's class of 1769. This makes sense — the second half clearly eulogizes a young man.

It's strange, though. The Park family would have known the Bulkleys, so perhaps this epitaph was not confusing to them, but it departs rather significantly from the usual pattern of epitaphs. If there is a verse or eulogy beneath the vital information, it is almost always dedicated to the principal honoree. I've never seen anything like this one before.

Col. John Bulkley and John Bulkley, Jr.

d. 1772 and 1774

Groton, MA

Snarkfest

Much to my surprise, I have found Benjamin Drew's transcriptions of the Plymouth epitaphs to be delightful reading. Besides the epitaphs themselves, Drew adds his own snarky little comments here and there. Here is one of my favorites:

First Person Gravestone

No, I don't mean that the epitaph speaks in the voice of the deceased. In this case, the gravestone itself speaks in the first person:

Rachel Cotton

d. 1808

Plymouth, MA

I

am erected

by

Josiah Cotton Esqr

in remembrance

of Rachel

his pious and Virtuous

Wife,

who died Januy 17th 1808

aged 50 years.

In belief of Christianity I lived,

In hope of a glorious Resurrection I died.

By Strangers Honored and By Strangers Mourned

In her book, This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust argues that 19th-cntury Americans spent a lot of time worrying about the disruption of the "good death" during the Civil War. One of their principal concerns was that men regularly died far from home, away from the (often female) family members who should have witnessed their last words, observed the evidence of their salvation, and performed proper mortuary rituals. In many cases, nurses, doctors, and local civilians stood in for absent family members, performing the duties that mothers, wives, and sisters could not.

This same concern occupied the minds of maritime families in earlier decades. When men died at sea or in foreign ports, their family members hoped that they had been attended in their last moments and sometimes imagined attendants into being.

A good example of this concern can be found on a cenotaph in Plymouth, MA. Isaac Wethrell was 19 years old when he died in "Martinico" in January of 1803; his brother William was 22 when he died in St. Thomas two months later. The Wethrell brothers' parents commissioned a single cenotaph for their sons, choosing to honor them with a quotation from Alexander Pope:

By foreign hands, thy dying eyes were closd

By foreign hands, thy decent limbs composd

By foreign hands, they humble grave adornd

By strangers honoured, and by strangers mournd

Erected

to perpetuate the memory

of two sons

of Thomas & Sarah Wethrell

who died in the West Indies.

William Wethrell

Decd at St Thomas

March 23d 1803

Aged 22 years.

Isaac Wethrell

Decd at Martinico

January 23d 1803

Aged 19 years.

By foreign hands, thy dying eyes were closd

By foreign hands, thy decent limbs composd

By foreign hands, they humble grave adornd

By strangers honoured, and by strangers mournd

To Act Thy Childhood O'er Again

I have only seen three gravestones that did not bear an individual's name (or identifying information). One is in Malden, MA, one is in the collection of the John Stevens Shop in Newport, RI, and one is at Copp's Hill in Boston.
The Copp's Hill stone is pictured above. The Farber Collection also has an excellent photo of this stone, taken before it sustained damage to the face and the right finial. Unfortunately, the carver remains unidentified.

I think it's the same carver. Like the Malden stone, the epitaph begins with a lowercase letter, the inscription is mostly lowercase, and the tall letters have little flourishes on the tops. In addition, the carver uses the antiquated "yt" for "that."

She That's Here Interred Needs No Versifying

On Saturday's outing to Bell Rock Cemetery in Malden, Pete found this extraordinary stone. I had completely overlooked it. At Bell Rock, nearly all of the stones face South, so I had previously passed over this humble, North-facing stone, which has never been illuminated during one of my visits.

There is so much to say about this gravestone.

"Lend, Lend Your Wings"

Zipporah Hughes of Norwich, Connecticut has an epitaph composed by Alexander Pope. Ok, not composed specifically for her, but still. Hughes' epitaph is from Pope's "The Dying Christian to His Soul"(1712). The poem was set to music and sung in many Christian churches during the 19th century, but I don't know whether it was a hymn in the late 18th century. The final two lines are quite popular for New England epitaphs, but the four-verse quotation is rarer.

Sacred to the memory

of Mrs. Zipporah

Hughes, consort of

Capt, John Hughes, she

departed this life Janr.

3d 1799. in ye 75th

year of her age.

Lend, lend your wings!

I mount! I fly!

O Grave! where is thy victory?

O death! where is thy sting?

Acrostic Epitaph

Another remarkable John Stevens I epitaph is this acrostic dedicated to Sarah Mitchell (1713).

Shall we lement for you our frind
And mother in Israel
Reciue her Lord into thy hand,
And then it will be well.
Honour her memory I will.

Make her to be at thy right hand.
In tryumph and true command
To the[e] o Lord her we resigne
Christ and she for to Combine
Her o Christ to you we giue
Euermore with you to liue
Lord do thou let her possess
Life and everlasting blessedness.

Sarah Mitchell, Newport, RI, 1713

carved by John Stevens I

"Night Etarnal Seals His Eyes"

This Newport gravestone has a verse from Catullus, translated by Joseph Addison. Whoever requested it may have encountered the verse in the works of Samuel Johnson.

In Memory of

John, Son of Will

iam & Susanna

Bourk died July

ye 29th. 1777 aged

14 Months.

When once the short

Liv'd Mortal dies,

A Night Etarnal 

Seals his Eyes.

John Bourk, Newport, RI, 1777

"Happie are the Youth"

This John Stevens I stone has a verse that appears to be an original. At least, I can't find another example of the poem (or any part of it) on the internet. The awkward grammar and smug rhyme support the idea that it may have been composed for the occasion.

HERE LIETH Ye BODY

OF JANE CUTLER WHO

DEPARTED THIS LIFE

SEPTEMR Ye 26th 1720

AND Ye BODY OF WILLM

HALL WHO DIED

JUNE Ye 21 1721

Happie are the youth

That dy in ye truth

And establishes righteousness

Another interesting thing about this stone is that the two people commemorated are not obviously related. Jane Cutler and William Hall are not called siblings and they are buried in the white section of the Newport Common Burying Ground, so it is unlikely that they were spouses in an unrecognized marriage. Were they cousins? Neighbors? The verse suggests that the deceased were children, and I've seen one or two stones where young friends or cousins are buried together, but it's very unusual.

Jane Cutler and William Hall

Newport, RI, 1721

carved by John Stevens I

Hannah Tyler of Providence

Here's another original composition — at least, the power of Google cannot find another example and I've never encountered it elsewhere:

SACRED

To the memory of

Miss HANNAH TYLER,

daughter of

Ebenezer & Ann Tyler.

She died Sept. 20, 1824,

aged 74 years, 2 months

and 9 days.

TRAVELLER,

If you have tears for one whose mind

felt for every human woe;

and whose alms as well as prayers

ascended daily;

for one whose nature was formed for friendship

and in whose soul dwelt at home,

FAITH, HOPE and CHARITY;

you may freely shed them over this

MONUMENT.

How do alms ascend? Isn't the point to keep them here on earth for the relief of the poor?

Hannah Tyler, Providence, RI, 1824