Quaint Tombstone Inscription, 1818

A Quaint Inscription

Smithville, Chenango County, New York

Chenango American, 1869

 

The Chenango American of Greene, prints the following inscription copied from a tombstone in the town of Smithville in the year 1869:

 

"Tabitha Agard lies here. She was the wife of Joseph Agard Esquire who was one of the first settlers of this town A.D. 1798. She died Sep 9 A D 1818 aged 68 years. This woman after many years of the greatest toil in this once howling wild in which she together with her family suffered much by hunger and nakedness was taken with lingering illness which lasted several years. She suffered much pain of body and depressed of spirits yet she knew in whom she had believed and waited with patience the coming of the Lord. She was an obedient wife, a loving mother, chaste, and a keeper at home, she was a suckerer of many in the settlement of this country. Both Indians and whitemen have often received food from hur hand. She instructed hur children to be always obedient to their father and to fear God every day. She was attentive to prayers bowing the knee to the Lord Jesus thus leaving a glorious example for all her sex to be obedient to their own husbands, teachers of good things, chaste keepers at home. She had four sons that cleared the ground where she and all this great family of the dead lie."

Smithville Flats Cemetery, Chenango County, New York