I'd never really been in there before. It's quiet (obviously), but seemed quieter than usual for a graveyard, if that's possible. It might be because I equate Quakers with stillness and serenity. They tend to keep their tombstones, if they even choose to have one, small and simple. It was a nice place.
Eventually I noticed a little building in my side-view mirror:
so I went to investigate.
It wasn't anything very interesting, just a little shed, but beside it was something much better:
That tree was just all like, "nom nom nom!" and gobbled up the tombstone (and whatever was beneath it, I guess). How long do you think it took for that to happen? Why wasn't someone like, "Hrm, maybe we shouldn't bury so-and-so right next to this hardy sapling."?
I tried to read the stone but it was pretty, um, digested. Here's what I could see:
Somebody Parry ... daughter of ... some other person ... Jane.
Wow.
According to Internment.net, there are at least 24 Parrys buried in the cemetery, I believe 11 of them females buried long enough ago for a tree that size to grow. Beyond that my brain sort of runs out of steam. Any ideas, my little nerdlingers?
As the caretaker of the graveyard until we moved when I was 17, I can tell you that there are some interesting, non-standard headstones out there. Amos Armitage, who I think was the last to run a mill in Solebury in the 20's, has a metal plate bolted to the stone. He's up on the same path as the tree-eaten stone, just across the main driveway. To the right of the shed, if you're facing the door, there's a stone a few rows to the right and close to the wall with a long poem engraved on the top. Behind the shed, there's a stone from a WWI that was pulled from its proper location but a former caretaker who was drunkard, along with a few other stones. To the left of the shed in the second(?) row, my great grandparents have a three arch stone, one of two in the graveyard. If you follow the path from the shed towards the far wall, on the right there's a stone with a ceramic tile with a picture of the buried couple on it (I think it's their wedding photo). My favorite section is the corner closet to the caretaker's house. It's the oldest section and most of the stones are eroded and illegible, but dates and names are visible on some.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this, I was the caretaker with my son's father 37? years ago. This graveyard and meeting house are a big part of my life. Before I even knew my son;s Dad I would be walking by and just have to go in and sit under one of the big trees and absorb the peace. ironically while working on our family tree recently. I found that my 4th Great -grand father had come here with William Penn. Their name was Cowgill {not original spelling} There name is found on tax maps in Solebury dating back to 1864.I am still working on printing these documents and am actually hoping to be able to map ot where their land had been. I had always been drawn to the area and spent most of my time there. Stackhose is another Quaker family name in the family.I know of two ancesters that were also involved with the Plumstead Friends Meeting.
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