Among the graves of those who are numbered
among the great of this land are two interesting
time-worn stones in the northeast corner, where
lie a mother and son, Lucy and George Lorrett,
for many years faithful slaves in the Crouch
family and in that of their son-in-law, Benjamin
Jordan. Lucy died at the ripe age of a hundred
years, while George, widely known through the
valley as "King George,'' was the last slave to
be owned in Dauphin County, as he would never
accept the freedom offered him repeatedly by his
master. In this same corner rest another old
slave, George Washington, who came North in
1865 with the Ninth Pennsylvania Cavalry and
ninety-year-old Dinah, the faithful colored
mammy to several generations of young Cow-
dens.
It links us closely with the past to stand rev-
erently in this peaceful home of the dead, with its
weeping willow in one corner and its patch of
myrtle happily left when progress decreed its
uprooting, and read the quaint epitaphs and
quainter names to be found on the weather-
38
beaten stones. It is the fashion to smile at the
ways of our mothers, those Grizzels, Abigails,
Priscillas and Marthas, but what wife among us
would not like to go down to history with her vir-
tues extolled as on that curious old stone close by
the mrytle-based cedar:
In
Memory of
Margert A
Alexander &
her two babes:
She was the A
greeable Con
sort of Andrew
Alexander.
She died August
22nd 1790 aged 33
years.
As you wander you may, perhaps, read smil-
ingly of that twin baby, little Hugh Wilson Ful-
ton, who departed this life in 1798, aged six
months and six days, and rests beneath this in-
scription :
The Beauteous Youth is Gone
The Much lov'd Object Fled
Entered his long Eternal
Home, And Numbered Among the Dead,
He was one of two at a Birth
And has paid the debt of Nature first.
Perhaps you will wonder how little Rebekah
Kearsley could attain so high a state of grace in
seven years as to merit her inscription,
"Children Remember your Creator in the days of
your youth as
Rebekah truly did :
39
or wish that you, too, could achieve the "risigna-
tion" of pretty Elizabeth Maclay, cut off in her
early twenties, of whom we read :
"a lingering distemper born with risignation
put a period to her life
on the 19th of April, 1794
in the 23d year of her age.
the duties
annexed to her station
were discharged without a blot.
Her weeping parents
have placed over her this stone
The Monument
of her Virtues and of
their affection.
Even in the "beyond'^ the mother of the Ma-
clays must be happier because:
"Her children place
over the grave of their mother
this memorial
of affection and gratitude
that to their welfare
was consecrated
a mind of rare power
animated by strong feeling
Ennobled by culture
and softened by religion"
There are hundreds more such epitaphs and
curious mourning rhymes in the old burial
ground. It will pay you to read them with their
odd paragraphing and spelling, some sunny aft-
ernoon as the shadows lengthen. It may make
you pause amid the whirl of twentieth century
40
life to wonder if, after all, we have advanced so
far as we think we have. Of how many of us
could be truthfully inscribed, as on the slab that
covers Parson Elder :
"The practice of piety seconded the precepts
Page 13
Presented as published in 1913. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
Among the graves of those who are numbered among the great of this land are two interesting time-worn stones in the northeast corner, where lie a mother and son, Lucy and George Lorrett, for many years faithful slaves in the Crouch family and in that of their son-in-law, Benjamin Jordan. Lucy died at the ripe age of a hundred years, while George, widely known through the valley as "King George,'' was the last slave to be owned in Dauphin County, as he would never accept the freedom offered him repeatedly by his master. In this same corner rest another old slave, George Washington, who came North in 1865 with the Ninth Pennsylvania Cavalry and ninety-year-old Dinah, the faithful colored mammy to several generations of young Cowdens.
It links us closely with the past to stand reverently in this peaceful home of the dead, with its weeping willow in one corner and its patch of myrtle happily left when progress decreed its uprooting, and read the quaint epitaphs and quainter names to be found on the weather-
beaten stones. It is the fashion to smile at the ways of our mothers, those Grizzels, Abigails, Priscillas and Marthas, but what wife among us would not like to go down to history with her virtues extolled as on that curious old stone close by the myrtle-based cedar:
In
Memory of
Margert A
Alexander &
her two babes:
She was the A
greeable Con
sort of Andrew
Alexander.
She died August
22nd 1790 aged 33
years.
As you wander you may, perhaps, read smilingly of that twin baby, little Hugh Wilson Fulton, who departed this life in 1798, aged six months and six days, and rests beneath this inscription :
The Beauteous Youth is Gone
The Much lov'd Object Fled
Entered his long Eternal
Home, And Numbered Among the Dead,
He was one of two at a Birth
And has paid the debt of Nature first.
Perhaps you will wonder how little Rebekah Kearsley could attain so high a state of grace in seven years as to merit her inscription,
"Children Remember your Creator in the days of
your youth as
Rebekah truly did :
or wish that you, too, could achieve the "resignation" of pretty Elizabeth Maclay, cut off in her early twenties, of whom we read :
"a lingering distemper born with resignation
put a period to her life
on the 19th of April, 1794
in the 23d year of her age.
the duties
annexed to her station
were discharged without a blot.
Her weeping parents
have placed over her this stone
The Monument
of her Virtues and of
their affection.
Even in the "beyond" the mother of the Maclays must be happier because:
"Her children place
over the grave of their mother
this memorial
of affection and gratitude
that to their welfare
was consecrated
a mind of rare power
animated by strong feeling
Ennobled by culture
and softened by religion"
There are hundreds more such epitaphs and curious mourning rhymes in the old burial ground. It will pay you to read them with their odd paragraphing and spelling, some sunny afternoon as the shadows lengthen. It may make you pause amid the whirl of twentieth century
life to wonder if, after all, we have advanced so far as we think we have. Of how many of us could be truthfully inscribed, as on the slab that covers Parson Elder :
"The practice of piety seconded the precepts