52 GRAVESTONES IN 52 WEEKS 1: URIAH BARTLETT OF KINGSTON, MA.

The Old Burial Ground is located in Kingston, Ma., the town just north of Plymouth. It's located
behind the First Congregationalist Church on Route 106 and has some very interesting headstones.
Some of them have quite a bit of information about the people buried there. Here's one for a gentleman named Uriah Bartlett:    

The stone reads:
            In Memory of
       URIAH BARTLETT  
       Born July 23, 1789,
       Died August 2, 1883,
          in his 95th year.
  He served in the War of 1812
and was a representative in the
General Court in 1813 and 1815.

   As a boy he had talked with the
venerable Ebenezer Cobb of this
town who was born in 1694 and
died in 1801, and who in his own
boyhood had known Peregrine White
who was born on the MAYFLOWER
in 1620 and died in 1704.
                 ________
    "Thou shall go to thy fathers in
peace, thou shall be buried in a
grand old age."           Genesis XV., 15.

It's amazing to think that a man who died in 1883 had spoken with a man who had known
Mayflower baby Peregrine White!
 

OLD BURYING GROUND, KINGSTON, MA: SYMBOLS & AN ENT

There are a number of  old gravestones at the Old Burying Ground with
 interesting designs & motifs. Some I recognize, others were new to me.

Urn & palm tree at the top of the stone.

Larger urn & palm tree

This next one is a bit more elaborate. The figure in the left hand oval has a circle
of life in her right hand, an hour glass in her left. In the right hand oval the figure
has the hourglass in her right hand a book (a Bible?) in her left.

Angel

A tower?

A broken chained circle.

Besides the symbols there was something I noticed about some of the
headstones at the Old Burying Ground:some of them were turning a
pale red or pink color. Some were just streaked, and others completley
stained. There were about a dozen altogether. Here are two examples:

I had never seen this before and had no idea what was causing it. So I
posted some of the pictures to the Association of Graveyard Rabbits
Facebook page and asked if anyone there might know. Lorinne Massey
suggested it could be tannin from the pine trees on the grounds combined
with rainfall to coat the gravestones. Considering all the stained stones
are located near or directly under the pine trees, it seems to me a logical
explanation.

Finally, one last shot: an ent like tree seems to be pondering the  meaning
of it all, or perhaps is calling for silence:

OLD BURYING GROUND, KINGSTON, MA. 3MAR 2012

The Old Burying Ground in Kingston Massachusetts is located behind
the First Congregationalist Church at 221 Main St (Rte 106). Entrance is made
around the corner from Green St. The gravestones, dating from the late 18th
century on to the present lie in the shade of a grove of pine trees.

There's some classic New England gravestone styles that I'll share next.