Funny Epitaphs :: Miscellaneous Epitaphs.

Miscellaneous Epitaphs.

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Essex, England:

Here lies the man Richard,
And Mary his wife,
Whose surname was Prichard:
They lived without strife;
And the reason was plain,—
They abounded in riches,
They had no care nor pain,
And his wife wore the breeches.

In Llangowen Churchyard, Wales:

Our life is but a summer's day:
Some only breakfast, and away;
Others to dinner stay, and are full fed;
The oldest man but sups, and goes to bed.
Large his account who lingers out the day;
Who goes the soonest, has the least to pay.

Middletown, Connecticut, 1741:

Under this stone
Lies my dear son
Which was an infant flower;
Whose dust God keeps
Ev'n while he sleeps,
Until the rising hour.

Many a cold wind o'er my body shall roll
While in Abraham's bosom I'm a feasting my soul.

The rising morn can't assume
That we shall end the day,
Death stands waiting at the door
To bear our souls away

Here lies I,
Killed by a sky-
Rocket in my eye.

From the Baltimore Sun:

He heard the angels calling him
From the celestial shore,
He flapped his wings and away he went
To make one angel more.

Shall all we die?
We shall die all.
All die shall we?
Die all we shall.

How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest,
They sleep not in their regimentals,
Such things being here not deemed essentials.

It was a cough that carried him off,
It was a coffin they carred off in.

On an infant eight months old:

Since I have been so quickly done for,
I wonder what I was begun for.

Little Johnny had a purple monkey
Climbing up a yellow stick,
Little Johnny licked the purple paint off,
And it made him deathly sick.
They stirred him up with calomel,
They tried to move his liver,
But all in vain, his little soul
Was wafted o'er the River.

Potterne in Wiltshire:

Here lies Joseph Trowlup
Who made yon stones roll up;
When death took his soul up,
His body filled this hole up.

From Massachusetts, where a sorrowing and pious parent inscribed the following two lines to the memory of his dead child:

We cannot have all things to please us,
Poor little Tommy's gone to Jesus.

A sympathetic reader, mistaking the point of the lament, added the lines:

Cheer up, dear friend—all may yet be well,
Perhaps poor little Tommy's gone to Hell.

New Berne, North Carolina:

Ingenious youth, thou art laid in dust.
Thy friends, for thee, in tears did burst.

York, Maine:

Although this stone may moulder into dust,
Yet Joseph Moodey's name continue must.

In Biddeford churchyard, Devon:

The wedding-day appointed was,
And wedding clothes provided;
Before the nuptial day, alas!
He sickened and he die did.

Lines written by a lady to console herself for the death of her father:

It will not do to give way
To despair and grief,
For according to God's ordination
Our trials in life are trifling and brief,
Compared to eternal damnation.

Lord Coningsby:

Here lies Lord Coningsby, be civil,
The rest God knows—so does the devil.

1767:

Tho' Boreas' blasts and boistrous waves
Have tost me to and fro,
In spite of both, by God's decree,
I harbor here below,
Where I do now at Anchor ride
With many of our fleet,
Yet once again I must set sail
My Admiral Christ to meet.

In Corley Churchyard, Warwickshire, England:

These hillocks green and mouldering bones
These gloomy tombs and lettered stones,
One admonition here supply:
Reader! art thou prepared to die?

Sleep soft in dust, wait the Almighty's will,
Then rise unchanged, and be an angel still.

Two children in Dorchester (a double inscription):

Abel—his offering accepted is
His body to the grave, his soul to blis
On Octobers twentye and no more
The yeare was sixteen hundred forty-four.

Submite submitted to her heavenly king.
Being a flower of that eternal Spring,
Near three years old, she died in heaven to wait,
The yeare was sixteen hundred forty-eight.

1808:

Boreas' blasts and Neptune's waves
Have tossed him to and fro,
But, by the sacred will of God,
He's anchored here below.

On a tombstone in New Jersey:

Reader, pass on!—don't waste your time
On bad biography and bitter rhyme;
For what I am, this crumbling clay insures,
And what I was, is no affair of yours!

From Portland, Oregon:

Beneath this stone our baby lies,
It neither cries nor hollers,
It lived but one and twenty days,
And cost us forty dollars.

This world is a prison in every respect,
Whose walls are the heavens in common;
The jailor is sin, and the prisoners men;
And the fetters are nothing but women.

Cornwall:

Forty-nine years they lived as man and wife,
And what's more rare, thus many without strife;
She first departing, he a few weeks tried
To live without her, could not, and so died.
Both in their wedlock's great Sabbatic rest
To be where there's no wedlock was blest,
And having here a jubilee begun
They're taken hence that it may ne'er be done.

Here lies a Mother and two Babes,
Who God has shortly called to their graves,
In heaven we hope they are blest
There to remain in eternal rest.

At Augusta, Maine:

—After Life's Scarlet Fever I sleep well.

Here lies John Ross,
Kick'd by a hoss.

Mammy and I together lived
Just two years and a half;
She went first—I followed next,
The cow before the calf.

I laid my wife beneath this stone
For her repose and for my own.

Beneath this stone a lump of clay,
Lies Arabella Young;
Who on the 24th of May,
Began to hold her tongue.

Here rests an old woman who always was tired,
For she lived in a house where no help was hired;
Her very last words were, "My friends I am goin'
To a land where there's nothin' of washin' or sewin',
And everything there shall be just to my wishes,
For where they don't eat there's no washin' of dishes;
The land with sweet anthems is constantly ringin',
But having no voice I'll get clear of the singin'."
She folded her hands, her latest endeavor,
And whispered, "Oh nothin', sweet nothin forever."

At Kensington, N. H.:

A live Dog is better than a dead Lion.

Come drop a tear as you pass by,
As you are now so once was I,
As I am now you soon must be,
Prepare for death and follow me.

A zealous locksmith died of late,
And did arrive at heaven's gate:
He stood without, and would not knock,
Because he meant to pick the lock.

Here lies Matthew Mudd,
Death did him no hurt;
When alive he was mud,
Now he's nothing but dirt.

Here lies I and my three daughters,
Kill'd by drinking Cheltenham waters;
If we had stuck to Epsom salts,
We'd not been a lying in these here vaults.

Here lies William Smith,
And what is somewhat rarish,
He was born, bred and
Hanged in this parish.

On Thomas Woodcock:

Here lie the remains of Thomas Woodhen,
The most amiable of husbands and excellent of men.

N. B. His real name was Woodcock, but it Wouldn't come in rhyme.—His widow.

On Dr. Walker, author of "English Particles":

Here lie Walker's particles.

An Irish epitaph:

Here lies the body of Jonathan Ground,
Who was lost at sea and never found.

On a coroner who hanged himself:

He lived and died
By suicide.

On Dr. Fuller:

Here lies Fuller's earth.

On a brewer:

Poor John Scott lies buried here;
Tho' once he was hale and stout,
Death stretch'd him on his bitter bier.
In another world he hops about!

Here lieth Richard Dent
In his last tenement.

Here lies Tommy Day,
Removed from over the way.

In New Jersey:

Julia ——
Died of thin shoes, April 17th, 1839, aged 19 years.

On a covetous person:

Of him within, nought e'er gratis was had,
That you read this so cheap now makes him sad.

On John Shaw, an attorney:

Here lies John Shaw,
Attorney-at-law,
And when he died
The Devil cried
"Give us your paw,
John Shaw,
Attorney-at-Law,
Pshaw! Pshaw!"

From Philadelphia:

In memory of Henry Wang, son of his Father and mother, John and Maria Wang.
Died Dec. 31st, 1829, aged ½ hour. The first deposit of this yard.

A short-lived joy
Was our little boy.
He has gone on high,
So don't you cry.

Against his will
Here lies George Hill
Who from a cliff
Fell down quite stiff
When it happen'd is not known
Therefore not mentioned on this stone.

Here lies my wife in earthly mould,
Who, when she liv'd, did naught but scold;
Peace, wake her not, for now she's still,
She had, but now I have my will.

This turf has drunk a widow's tear,
Three of her husbands slumber here.

It may be interesting to state that the tearful widow was still living with a fourth partner.

Here lies Sir John Guise:
No one laughs, no one cries:
Where he's gone, and how he fares,
No one knows, and no one cares.

On a celebrated cook:

Peace to his hashes.

"Underneath this ancient pew
Lie the remains of Jonathan Blue;
His name was Black, but that wouldn't do."

"Here I lie, and no wonder I am dead,
For the wheel of a wagon went over my head."

Here lies the body of Molly Dickie, the Wife of Hall Dickie, tailor

Two great physicians first
My Loving husband tried,
To cure my pain——
In vain,
At last he got a third,
And then I died.

As I am now, so you must be,
Therefore prepare to follow me.

Written under:

To follow you I'm not content,
How do I know which way you went.

The manner of her death was thus:
She was druv over by a Bus.

On Jonathan Fiddle, written by Ben Johnson:

On the twenty-second of June
Jonathan Fiddle went out of tune.

On John Cole, who died suddenly, while at dinner:

Here lies Johnny Cole,
Who died, on my soul,
after eating a plentiful dinner.
While chewing his crust,
He was turned into dust,
with his crimes undigested—poor sinner.

Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery free,
Who long was a bookseller's hack.
He led such a damnable life in this world
I don't think he'll ever come back.

She lived genteely on a small income.

Here lies my poor wife, much lamented
She's happy, and I'm contented

On Burbridge, the tragedian:

Exit Burbridge

A laconic epitaph:

Snug.

Since all that's mortal turns to dust
Reader! be humble and be just;
'Twill ease thy mind of anxious care
And sooth thy passage—God knows where!

On this marble drop a tear—
Here lies poor Rosalind:
All mankind were pleas'd with her
And she with all mankind.

Pray for me, old Thomas Dunn
But if you don't, tis all one.

To the memory of Thomas Hause:

"Lord, thy grace is free,—why not for me?"

This man dying greatly in debt, one of his creditors wrote underneath:

And the Lord answered and said,—
"Because thy debts aint paid!"

Our bodies are like shoes, which off we cast,
Physic their cobblers, and Death their last.

Who lies here?—Who do you think?
'Tis poor Will Gibson—give him a drink.
Give him a drink, I'll tell you for why,
When he was living, he always was dry.

On John Phillips:

Accidentally shot as a mark of affection by his brother.

The little hero that lies here
Was conquered by the diarrhoea.

My wife lies here,
All my tears cannot bring her back;
Therefore, I weep.

Died when young and full of promise
Of whooping cough our Thomas.

A rum cough carried him off.

Grim death took little Jerry,
The son of Joseph and Sereno Howells,
Seven days he wrestled with the dysentery
And then he perished in his little bowels

On a tombstone in Grafton, Vt.:

Gone home below.

Here lies Bernard Lightfoot who was accidentally killed in his forty fifth year.
Erected by his grateful family.

In a churchyard near Boston, Mass.:

Of pneumonia supervening consumption complicated with other diseases, the main symptoms of which was insanity.

In Nova Scotia:

Here lies old twenty five per cent.
The more he had the more he lent.
The more he had the more he craved,
Great God, can this poor soul be saved.

A bird, a man, a loaded gun,
No bird, dead man, thy will be done.

In a New York churchyard:

We shall miss thee, mother.
(Job printing neatly done.)

At East Thompson, N. Y.:

Here lies one who never sacrificed his reason to superstitious God, nor ever believed that Jonah swallowed the whale

Alpha White, weight 300 pounds.
Open wide ye golden gates
That lead to the heavenly shore,
Our father suffered in passing through
And mother weighs much more

He's done a catching cod
And gone to meet his God.

He got a fish bone in his throat
And then he sang an angels note

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 this same style are
two hundred and fifty dollars.

Here lies Dodge, who dodged all good
And dodged a deal of evil.
But after dodging all he could
He could not dodge the devil.

Sacred to twins Charlie and Varlie
Sons of loving parents who died
in infancy.

Deeply regretted by all who never knew him.

Supplementary Epitaphs: Blank pages for the convenience of collectors

Transcriber's Note:

There are 18 blank pages at the end of the book with the header

Supplementary Epitaphs.
Blank pages for the convenience of collectors.

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible.

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