New England Oddities

This Week’s Best Photos

Below is a selection of our best photos taken over the past week. Click to open full size. Beneath the photos you will find links to our full Flickr sets for these locations.

Dark clouds spell an impending storm over Simsbury Cemetery in Simsbury, Connecticut.

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This Week’s Best Photos

Below is a selection of our best photos taken over the past week. Click to open full size. Beneath the photos you will find links to our full Flickr sets for these locations.

The gate at Woodland Cemetery in Granville, Massachusetts.

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Headstone Symbols – In Hoc Signo Vince

When we walk among the many and varied grave markers anywhere in the world, we notice that while some are elaborate and complex in their imagery, others convey a message about the deceased in a simple yet significant way. This next symbol we are about to study is of a simple design – the three letters I, H and S overlaid upon one another.

The letters signify the Latin phrase ” In hoc signo vince”, which in English means: “In this sign you shall conquer”.

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This Week’s Best Photos

Below is a selection of our best photos taken over the past week. Click to open full size. Beneath the photos you will find links to our full Flickr sets for these locations.

The railroad crossing signal at the East Portal of the Hoosac Tunnel in Florida, Massachusetts.

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Headstone Symbols – Fraternal Orders

A short walk through any cemetery in New England provides the observant eye with a wealth of symbolism, whether it be everyday things like flowers, trees, or animals, or something somewhat . . . stranger. Regardless of the symbols used, they all held a deep meaning to the deceased, so much so that they (or their families) felt they needed to declare it for all eternity by carving it in stone.

If you have ever wondered what these symbols mean, you have come to the right place. This article is the first in a series in which I will attempt to explain many of the symbols found in New England cemeteries.

First up – fraternal orders:

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This Week’s Best Photos

Below is a selection of our best photos taken over the past week. Click to open full size. Beneath the photos you will find links to our full Flickr sets for these locations.

It was a gorgeous day to be a taphophile at Miner Cemetery in Middletown, Connecticut.

Continue reading This Week’s Best Photos…

This Week’s Best Photos

Below is a selection of our best photos taken over the past week. Click to open full size. Beneath the photos you will find links to our full Flickr sets for these locations.

The tip of a random crane in Clinton, Massachusetts.

Continue reading This Week’s Best Photos…

This Week’s Best Photos

Below is a selection of our best photos taken over the past week. Right-click to open full size. Beneath the photos you will find links to our full Flickr sets for these locations.

The Smith monument at Quabbin Park Cemetery. Quabbin Park is a very large, scenic park-style cemetery in Ware, MA, and is the new home of many of the grave sites that had to be moved when the Quabbin Reservoir was commissioned.

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A Potter’s Field In Springfield

Burial grounds in New England boast a wide variety of markers, from traditional stones, to crosses, to flat plaques, benches, raised tables and even obelisks. But what of a graveyard with no visible markers whatsoever?

Bay Path Cemetery in Springfield, Massachusetts is one such “stoneless” yard. Also called the Almshouse Burial Grounds, Bay Path Cemetery is home to nearly a thousand former residents of the town poorfarm and the old Municipal Hospital. Giving every impression of an empty lot, the small cemetery sits on a corner of Blunt Park by Roosevelt Avenue. It is surrounded by a low chain-link fence with locked gates, and contains a solitary stone marker bearing an inscription from Matthew: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

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Buried Legends

Our perception of death has been accompanied by superstition and tradition since humans first implemented the practice of burial around 60,000 BC. Every culture throughout history has observed its own elaborate customs, both to keep safe the living and chaperon the dead to their next stop.

Our modern cemeteries are no less exempt from the vestigial residue of archaic myth. Combining an array of traditional elements – from a uniformity of layout (the feet of the decedents to the East and heads to the West), to gun salutes, bells, and headstones decorated with symbols ranging in theme from the cherubic to memento mori – is it any wonder that cemeteries have long been a source of both curiosity and trepidation?

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