This one is worth a post of its own, I suppose.




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Took these late Saturday afternoon/early evening. The light was frequently difficult to deal with, but it was worth it. My hands were frozen by the time we left.




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Entire album here. Cross-posted.

These were taken in the churchyard of Old Swedes Church (aka Trinity Episcopal) in Swedesboro, NJ. There's another old burial ground that belongs to Trinity, but it's a bit farther up Church St. Despite the cold, I'm glad I made the effort to get there before all the leaves had fallen.

The little building in the background of the next three pics is the Schorn log cabin. It dates back to the 1600s and was moved to the cemetery in the late 80s after the last owner deeded it to the Gloucester County Historical Society.







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Sarah Ann died in May of 1850. Her husband, George L. Harrison, was a successful merchant. They were living in the vicinity of Spruce Street at the time of her death, with their three children and three Irish domestics. One of their immediate neighbors was Philadelphia common pleas court judge James Campbell who would later become PA State Attorney General and then U.S. Postmaster General from 1853-57. They weren't living in the cheap seats, and Sarah's monument definitely reflects that. Here she is, overlooking the Schuylkill River in Old Laurel Hill.



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Here is a partial list of the headstones I photographed at High Bridge Church, Rockingham Co., Natural Bridge, VA. Transcriptions of the headstones are included when they're legible.

Click here to visit the album.

ACKERLY
John S. Ackerly
Maria W. Ackerly

BARGER
Betta Barger
Sarah Catharine Barger
Serena Rives Barger (wife of A. Nash Johnston)

BYERS
William Byers

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Today, I was slobbered on by a muddy-snooted water buffalo. He was huge. Simply *huge.* The suckers weigh in the neighborhood of 2200 lbs, and this guy was no lightweight. His breath was... vile, really, and came in short little snorts. He could barely fit his nose into the little plastic grain bucket, but he managed to get his stinky tongue in there and hoovered up massive quantities of the stuff before wiping his muddy mouth on my arm and trying to scratch an annoying itch on the top of his horn'd head on the top edge of the winow opening in my car door. When that failed to provide him with any relief, he then lowered his huge head a bit and started rubbing it vigorously against my side-view mirror. Given the whole "horns" thing, the result was far more scratching of the mirror than the itch.

After it gave up on trying to rip the mirror off the head-scratching, it shoved its great big snoot right in the window and hoovered up another mouthful of feed pellets before finding a tree to rub its ass on in an attempt to scratch that bit, too.

In retrospect, I'm actually pretty pleased that it only used its front bits on my car, as the alternative is far less pleasant. And at least it didn't try to have sex with it. The first water buffalo we passed seemed far too intrigued.

For reference, I have a tiny little Scion XA exactly like this one. The head of a 2200 lb. ruminant animal *more* than fills the window.

Also fed a couple of rheas and saw the cutest little Vietnamese pot-bellied piglets I have ever seen. Their little tails were spinning a mile a minute while they played chase and kicked up their heels. Other than the incredibly rude and ill-behaved foreign tourists ahead of us throwing potato chips out for the animals to eat, and the incredible amounts of dust that were coating my car from the trails (it's been quite dry in the area, of late) I really enjoyed the place. Even looking at the animals from afar was rewarding, and I didn't find anything seedy or unpleasant about the way the animals were being cared for. It's definitely somewhere I'll want to visit again. (Oh yffy...?)

I saw the greatest little churchyard when we were driving around after, and took a heap of pictures. (I have the Sony Cybershot, though--I was too nervous to bring the D80.) Tomorrow, we're going to Stonewall Jackson Cemetery in Lexington, near VMI. I'm glad I have extra memory cards for the camera. :) Then we're going to head home by way of Skyline Drive, and probably stop for dinner somewhere. (I brought a decent set of clothes this time, so I won't feel like a poor relation. :P )

But now... sleep.

William James Mullen, a respected philanthropist and prison reformer, died in 1882. About six years later, this monument was erected on his grave in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia. The castle-like building is modeled after Moyamensing Prison, which was razed in 1963.

There's a large plaque on the back of the stone that talks about Mullen's accomplishments, but since it's impossible to read without going through several closeups, I've included one shot of the entire plaque and a transcription of the text at the end of this post. Some of the symbolism of the monument is reflected in the text. (Drive across the bridge into South Laurel Hill, and turn right. The Mullen monument is about 50 yards ahead, on your left. Need I say that you can't miss it...? :)



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cearbhaill and I visited Mt. Vernon Cemetery last week. The place is overgrown and the buildings/gatehouse are in sad, sad disrepair, but it's nowhere near as wretched as Mount Moriah. Mt. Vernon requires that you make an appointment at least 24 hours in advance in order to visit there. The phone number to call is 215-229-6038. They get back to you within 24 hours of your call, within business hours. (I called them at 2:30 p.m. on Monday and they called me back at 7:50 a.m. on Tuesday.)

The album is here: Mount Vernon Cemetery, Ridge Ave & Lehigh Ave, Philadelphia, PA
Password is memento mori. (I just do that to avoid getting comment-spammed, really.)



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Hosted on Fotki


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Saturday involved coffee, bathing, a stop at Bill's Wonderland of Pets (yes, it's a real place) and a trip into the city to pick up TBD who then drove me to a lovely old cemetery we'd passed a couple weeks ago. It was too late in the day for me to take any decent photos, then, but he said we could go back with the intention of catching the early afternoon sun. And we did. :)

We also stopped for a bit of lunch (Subway--ugh) and then did some shopping (Ikea--yay! Auto Zone--eh) before heading up to New Hope for dinner and a ridiculously lacklustre performance by one of his former classmates who had secured a one-night gig at a piano bar.

I was a tad miffed at the piano bar thing since he sprang it on me mid-trip, and I felt under-dressed. I got mine back, however, by... Let's just say I gave him a Coupling moment in the restaurant. It was rewarding to note that he was rendered temporarily incapable of coherent speech.

Came home, watched an absolutely *hideous* movie I'd bothered to record, and slept.

Sunday involved more coffee, grocery shopping, and much cleaning. My desk is completely disassembled save one set of lower shelves that I still need to clear of books before I can move it. Then the ferret cage can take its permanent place in the corner by the window, and my desk can go upstairs, in pieces, until I get my room in shape and order new office furniture.

Today there was much running of errands in the a.m., and there will be laundering, cooking and more cleaning in the remainder of the afternoon and evening.

It will be nice to have some of the chaos under control after this weekend.

Here are many, many headstone photos from the *very* old Charter Street Cemetery, aka the Old Burying Ground, or Old Salem Cemetery. (Yes, it's password protected. Ask and ye shall receive.)

Yes, some of these people were executed--which is putting it nicely, as being crushed to death is beyond cruel and unusual--for supposedly practicing witchcraft. Some are noteworthy local political figures, or whatnot. I'll leave you to enjoy an "A-ha!" moment, or three. :)

This is a much smaller album of the headstones in Old South Cemetery, which is actually in Peabody, just outside the Salem city limits. (Same password as above.) Warning--the original images are freaking *huge*. They're there for those of you who want to read the epitaphs for yourselves, and to spare me from having to crop and enlarge the epitaph portion of every single stone that has a legible one.)

A shame I ran out of memory cards.... :( But I'm told that we can go back soon, the very thought of which thrills me beyond measure. *wriggles happily in grave anticipation of future cemetereal rapture.*

Mini-break was absolutely wonderful. Got back late Sunday night, slept quite late on Monday, and ( Cut for polyfrog's sanity. )

I'll make a separate post for trip details and photos. I filled two 256MB memory cards as well as the spare 38MB card that came with the camera--and it's ALL cemetery pics. :P I feel vaguely obsessive and silly but oh, my GOD they were amazing! I'm so, SO glad we're going back again! I could easily spend another week doing nothing but wandering the graveyards, taking photos and transcribing the stones.

Am looking forward to seeing Niagara Falls, too. I was an infant when my parents made that particular pilgrimage, so I have no memory of the place at all.

yffy, if you're reading this, I'll pop over to walk His Highness and check on the rest of the crew after kit_kallisti gets home tonight. I hope you had a talk with little Ms. Skidmark about *not* scaring the daylights out of us, this time around. My poor heart can only take so much. :P

It is a beautiful day. Autumn is feeling her Wheaties more and more with every clump of grass, fallen pinecone and bit of deer poo she sees. (She *really* wants to roll in the poo, but I'm not prepared to let her go that far in her revelry.)

Am going to clean myself up and head into Phila, shortly. Whenever the weather is pleasant, there is talk of walking, or even cemeteries and walking! Am really quite excited at the possibilities, but I can live with the alternatives just as well, as am feeling quite uncharacteristically warm-and-fuzzy at the moment.

Last week, I cooked dinner *here* and carted it into the city with me. We ended up eating cold food because the side dishes they were providing hadn't been picked up yet, so by the time we did that, the chicken had gone rather cold. Which is no fun at all. Dessert was in great shape, though, as it required no heating or refrigeration. Am taking prepared but not *cooked* food, this time. I'm just going to print out the baking temp and time and tape it to the plastic wrap, so they can cook it whenever they feel like it.

*yawn* ~stretch!~ Much better. :) Really should get ready to go...

In my earlier post, I mentioned taking some detail shots of this particular plot.


( And here they are... )

Despite the grey skies, I hauled myself up Ridge Ave. into the yuckier bits of Philadelphia to take some pictures and find my center in Old Laurel Hill Cemetery. It's hard to believe that the place sprawls over 97 acres--an acre shy of our farm--yet one can easily get lost on the meandering circles and climbing paths.



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Many pictures ahead, starting with this baby barn swallow that is hanging out beneath his nest in the packing shed.



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