More Queer Epitaphs

Queer Epitaphs

Mortuary Literature Out of the Ordinary Run

Morning Sun, Norwich, NY, August 8, 1891

This one is found in an Irish graveyard:

Erected to the memory of John Phillips,

accidentally shot as a mark of affection by his brother.

In the Llangollen churchyard, North Wales, the tomb of Morris and Catherine jones is inscribed:

Our life is but a winter's day,

Some breakfast and away.

Others to dinner stay and are well fed.

The oldest man sups and goes to bed;

Large is his debt who lingers out the day,

Who goes the soonest has the least to pay.

Ann Jennings was a sturdy English woman, and this is what the Jennings folks of later generations read:

Some have children, some have none;

Here lies the mother of twenty-one.

But for an Irish pun, this is really a grave offence:

Here lie the remains of John Hall, grocer

The world is not worth a fig, and I have good raisons for saying so.

Poet Laureate Skelton had this written at Queen Elizabet's death; it is seen at St. Mary-le-bow.

Fame, blow aloud, and to the world proclaim

There never ruled such a royal dame;

The Word of God was ever her delight,

In it she meditated day and night.

Spain's rod, Rome's ruin, Netherland's relief,

Earth's joy, England's gem, world's wonder, nature's chief.

She was and is, what can there more be said?

On earth the chief, in Heav'n the second maid.

Benjamin Franklin's body was buried beside his wife's in Christ Churchyard Philadelphia.  He wrote this epitaph for  himself when he was twenty-three years old:

The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (Like the cover of an old Book its contents torn out, and stripped of its lettering and gildings) Lies here, food for worms.

Yet the work itself shall not be lost,  For it will, as he believed, appear once more, in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the author.

This tells the story of a brewer:

Poor John Scott lies buried here,

Tho' once he had both hale and stout,

Death stretched him on his bitter bier,

In another World he hops about.

The Duke of Norfolk in Richard Sheridan' time was a great whist player, and upon his death Sheridan wrote:

Here lies England's premier baron

Patiently awaiting the last trump.

A Dunkirk family ordered the inscription, "Let her rest in peace," upon the tomb of one recently departed.  But the lettering artist found that he did not have room for the entire sentence so he abbreviated in this manner:  "Let her r.i.p."

This is the kind of funeral literature they used to use in California:

Here lies the body of Jeemes Humbrick, who was accidentally shot on the bank of the Pacus River by a young man.  He was accidentally shot with one of the large Colt's revolvers with no stopper for the cock to rest on.  It was one of the old-fashioned kind--brass mounted. And of such is the kingdom of heaven.

Thomas Smith was a sculptor and a keen business man.  He cut this in his wife's tomb:

Here lies Jane Smith, wife of Thomas Smith, marble cutter. This monument was erected by her husband as a tribute to her memory and a specimen of his work.  Monuments of the same style, $250.

This illogical jingle comes from Cornwall, England:

Father and mother and I

Lie buried here asunder;

Father and mother lie buried here,

And I lie buried off yonder.

There seems to be very little doubt about Robt. C. Wright's death.  He was killed near Appomattox Court House, Va.:

Robt. C. Wright

Was Born June 26th, 1772

Died July 2, 1815

By the bloodthirsty hand of John Sweeney, Sr., who was massacre with the Nife, then a London Gun discharge a ball penetrate the Heart, which gave the immortal wound.

This lay is dedicated to a suicide:

He never won immortal fame

Nor conquered earthly ills,

Yet men weep for him all the same--

He always paid his bills.

Henry Wang was born near Philadelphia, December 31, 1829, and becoming discouraged with his surroundings, he lived only half an hour.  John Wang, his father, wrote:

A short-lived joy

Was our little boy;

He has gone on high,

So don't cry.

The Rev. Michael McCullock, D.D., of Bothwell (1767-1801), wanted his friend, the Rev. Thomas Brisbane, of Dunlop, to write his epitaph.  This is what he got:

Here lies interred beneath this sod

That sycophantish man of God.

Who taught an easy way to heaven,

Which to the rich was always given;

If he gets in he'll look and start

To find some one he put there.

This statement is unverified:

She was married twenty-four years, and in all that time never once banged the door.

The following mark of esteem is an terse as it is ambiguous.  It is found in Grafton, Vt.: