Plot Owner Brings Burial Grounds' History to Life (Greenwich Time, 1987)

by John S. Sweeney, Staff Writer

Greenwich Time, Greenwich, Connecticut

April 5, 1987

When Jeffrey Mead was first given the deeded to his families 120-year-old burial ground in 1985, the grass was so high he couldn't see any of the tombstones.

Mead, the new owner of the Mead cemetery and Cos Cob, believes that old cemeteries are priceless heirlooms to be treasured and maintained.

A 13th generation descendent of John Mead, one of the town's 12 original proprietors, Mead acquired the deed to his family plot after convincing family members that he was the right man to see that it was properly restored.

For the last two Saturdays, Mead encouraged volunteers to help clean up many of the town's other 49 cemeteries. In addition to that, he says, about a dozen cemeteries appear on historical records but cannot be found. Mead says many cemeteries, like his family plot, have become overgrown with bushes.

Rainy weather has dogged both clean up attempts, but Mead is planning to reorganize his campaign later this week.

"I need to study a long-range weather forecast before trying again," he said yesterday. "But I've had a lot of interested phone calls, and I know people want to help."

The Mead cemetery, on the east shore of the Mill Pond in Cos Cob, is one of the towns newest burial sites, dating from the 1860s, Mead said, and has suffered years of neglect.

"The brush had grown so high you couldn't see any of the grave markers," said Mead, who cleared away most of it by himself. "The grass was 2 or 3 feet high."

Mead, a free-lance writer with an interest in history, has restored the family cemetery to a park-like condition. He has the grass cut regularly and has planted bulbs that will produce flowers the spring. He will add some bushes this year he said, and some time in the future wants to put a fence around the one-third-acre property near Relay Place.

Mead wants all the town cemeteries that have suffered from similar neglect to be restored and hopes to form neighborhood volunteer groups who would preserve them. The town's Department of Parks and Recreation continues to maintain many of the larger, more visible cemeteries, but Mead said the smaller ones, hidden from general view, need care.

He planned to kick off his campaign on March 28 at the Close family cemetery on Lake Avenue with a presentation by town historian William Finch and other members of the Historical Society of Greenwich, of which Mead is the youngest board member.

Yesterday, he hoped to organize volunteers to help clean up the Pecksland cemetery on Pecksland Road, the Bonnell-Ferris-Palmer cemetery on Cat Rock Road and the Burying Hill cemetery on Burying Hill Road.

Mead said there are only a handful of town cemeteries, possibly two or three, that are privately owned.

Finch, himself a descendant of several Greenwich families, has been compiling cemetery data for half a century.

"Anyone who could prove to be a descendent of the families buried there can apply for burial rights. The property cannot be disturbed or transferred to new owners until a quitclaim from all descendants has been obtained, something that is almost impossible to do," Finch said.

Occasionally property owners will find an old cemetery on a tract. Finch said they cannot own the plot without legal transfer from all family heirs and which they are, by law, restricted from disturbing. Descendants are also provided the right to get to the cemetery, even if that involves cross allowing them access to private land not part of the burial ground.

Town records indicate there should be 63 cemeteries in Greenwich and outlying areas, but only 50 have been identified. Mead said he has not located the grave of his original ancestor, John Mead whom he presumes is buried in one of the lost cemeteries.

"If we find him, that's fine," Mead said. "At this point not making an active search."

The Mead Cemetery in Cos Cob once belonged to William H. Mead, whose house stood on the site of the present Cos Cob School and whose property crossed over the Post Road and included Mead Avenue, where Jeffrey Mead lives, and the cemetery plot, where William Mead is buried.

The remaining town cemeteries are scattered throughout Greenwich, many containing the last remains of members of prominent families, with names such as Ferris, Lockwood, Finch, Husted and Davis.

"I suppose by now we're all inter-related," said Mead. "Over the years everyone married to someone else's cousin. It's impossible to keep it all straight."

Mead has proposed to the Greenwich Historical Society that it establish a Historic Cemetery Registry, which would identify all the cemeteries, record all the data on the tombstones, including the epitaphs and style of lettering, and research what facts or legends can be found about those buried there.

"The cemeteries are an important part of town history," said Mead. "It should all be documented before the grave markers have become illegible."

Automobile emissions, acid rain and the inevitable erosion of time have made many of the names and dates on the grave markers difficult to read.

Mead has recently become a member of the Association for Gravestone Studies in Needham, Mass., to learn more about preserving the markers.

The original gravestones were simple pieces of fieldstone implanted in the ground with no further identification, Mead said. In later years, a date or a name would be inscribed. By the end of the 18th century gravemarkers were finely chiseled slabs of sandstone, bearing symbols, such as a death's head or an hourglass as well as names, dates and often an epitaph. By the middle of the 19th century they had become elaborate, sometimes chiseled in slate or taking the form of an obelisk, such as can be seen in the Mead plot.

"A great deal can be learned by studying tombstones," Mead said, "how long people lived, when women died in childbirth and when epidemics hit the town.

Mead said the town cemeteries have inspired ideas for several stories he hopes to write. One will be a book about the epitaphs, which he says are interesting reading, telling us how people thought about life 200 years ago.

One of them could be a motto for his neighborhood campaign. It reads:

"Pray look at me as you pass by,
As you are now so once was I.
This is to let you see
What care my child has took for me."

Rambles About Greenwich: The Old Hitchcock Cemetery at Cos Cob

Greenwich News & Graphic. Circa 1932.

Gravestone of Mary Hitchcock. 

To eliminate a dangerous curve on Siwanoy Road, Cos Cob, just north of its intersection with the Post Road, it will be necessary to go through a long-abandoned private cemetery, the history of which is more or less hazy. Inscriptions on the few remaining headstones show that it was in use by a family named Hitchcock as far back as the days preceding the Revolution, but exactly when the first body was interred there and when it ceased to be used is largely a matter of conjecture.

Elimination of the curve is planned by the town in connection with the paving of the road next summer. Town officials, however, realize the legal complications surrounding such a step when a cemetery is involved and are proceeding cautiously. If there are any living descendants of those buried there, consent of each one must be obtained, and this sometimes is a long and tedious process. The cemetery is part of the property now owned by Michael Taylor, but this does not eliminate the necessity of obtaining the consent of the others interested.

The Hitchcock Cemetery. The office building at 8 Sinawoy Road is to the left. Image credit: Showmystreet.com

The cemetery is a small one, on the left side of the road as one the Post Road. It is enclosed by a stone wall with the exception of a few places is apparently just as it was at the time it was built. On the east side is a small iron gate that will not to swing open due to dirt that has accumulated around the bottom.

Another view of the cemetery from the intersection of Sinawoy Road and Taylor Drive. The building in the upper left corner of the image is the back of the Cos Cob Firehouse. Image credit: Showmystreet.com. 

The whole interior shows evidence that it has been abandoned for many years. Good sized trees are growing all over the plot. In the center is what was probably at one time a small vault. This, however, has long since been sealed and trees are growing over it. What it contains, if anything, nobody knows.

There are only four headstones to be found in the entire cemetery, and only one of these is standing. It reads as follows:

Here Lies 

the Remains of 

John Hitchcock 

Deceased 

May 5th, A. D. 1774 

Aged 49 years

The stone stands at the extreme northwest corner. It is a brownstone, probably inexpensive, and like the others in the cemetery has been badly worn by the elements, its inscription all but obliterated. Despite its age, however, its inscription is possibly plainer than any of the others.

Scattered on the ground close by are three others. Next to the John Hitchcock stone in point of age is the following:

In 

Memory of 

Mary, Wife of 

Thomas Hitchcock 

Who Died 

April 21, 1797

Aged 17 Yrs. 

10 Mos. & 19 D's.

Third in point of age is the following: 

In 

Memory of 

Thomas Hitchcock 

Who Died 

Dec. 29, 1813 

Aged 56 Years 

& 4 Months

If each case, effort is here being made to reproduce the inscriptions is nearly as possible is they appear on the stones. Following the age on the Thomas Hitchcock stone are lines of poetry, similar to those found on so many of the old stones. These lines are badly worn by the elements and difficult to decipher. The following is all that is possible to reproduce here:

"The debt I paid the grave 

– soon you all will follow 

me."

The inscription on the remaining stone reads as follows:

In 

Memory of 

Thomas, Jr. 

Son of Thomas & 

Hannah Hitchcock 

Who Died 

Sept. 18, 1827 

Aged 20 Yrs. 

6 Mos & 7 das.

Thy morning parents grieve for 

one 

Who made with them so short a

stay 

Perhaps your Heavenly Father 

saw 

Some –---- on its way.

The "Abstract of Tombstones of the Town of Greenwich" and "Abstract of Births, Marriage and Deaths of the Town of Greenwich from the Earliest Town and Land Records to June, 1847," the work of Spencer P. Mead and in the town clerk's office, reveal but little more information about this old cemetery. Mr. Mead, a lawyer, member of the Sons of the Revolution and Sons of Colonial Wars, and author of "Ye Historie of Greenwich," published in 1911, and "History and Genealogy of the Mead Family," published in 1901, arranged his abstracts and typewritten form and they form a most valuable part of the town's history. 

Historian Spencer P. Mead's record of the Hitchcock Cemetery, Cos Cob. 

Of the Hitchcock family we find the following references in the "Abstract of Births, Marriages and Deaths:"

"John Hitchcock and Mindwell, daughter of Joseph Rundle, were married on July 8, 1756, by Rev. Abraham Todd. Their children were:

"Thomas, born Aug. 30, 1757." 

"Joseph, born Oct. 29, 1759." 

"Thomas Hitchcock and Clemence, daughter of William Reynolds, of Pound Ridge, were married on Feb. 26, 1784."

Daniel Bouton, of Rye, and Mahala Hitchcock, of Greenwich, were married on Nov. 14, 1827, by Rev. John Ellis, of Stamford."

"Ard Knapp and Louise Hitchcock, both of Greenwich, were married on May 10, 1841, by Rev. B.M. Yarrington."

Greenwich Library records reveal a Thomas Hitchcock, who was a soldier in Capt. Abraham Mead's company in the Revolution. They also reveal that one Silas Betts married Hannah Betts, a cousin, and that after his death she married Thomas Hitchcock. It is entirely probable that the Thomas Hitchcock, Sr., buried in the old cemetery, is the soldier mentioned as a member of Captain Mead's company and that he married the Hannah Bettes who first married Silas Betts.

Silas and Hannah Betts had only one child, Walter, born Sept. 27, 1789. Walter married Harriet Morrell, born April 14, 1796. He was lost at sea in 1828 and his wife died in October, 1882. They left three children, Emily, Silas, Anne, William and Willis.

Whether or not more than one child, Thomas, Jr., was born by the union of Thomas and Hannah Betts Hitchcock, no records are to be found. There are about a half dozen small markers in the old cemetery but they bear no names, and there is no way of knowing how many bodies are buried there.

Cemetery Restored to Preserve the Past (1991)

by Bill Slocum
Greenwich News, Greenwich, Connecticut
Thursday, June 20, 1991

Caption: On guard for history -Hard work by a group of residents resulted in the restoration of burying Hill Cemetery. Efforts are now being made to keep it permanently maintained.

It was called Burying Hill Cemetery, but for years, it could easily have been mistaken for another nondescript track of vacant land. Some markers along Burying Hill Road that commemorated Greenwich's ancient dead were covered with weeds and tall grass. Sporadic attempts were made at clearing the cemetery, but for the most part they resembled less a historic landmark than a cluttered eyesore.

Then Valerie P. Storms, a Burying Hill Road woman and representative Town Meeting member from District 10, got a few of her neighbors together to restore the cemetery to something close to its former state. Now she hopes to keep it that way.

"What I am really interested in is a way to keep it maintained for a long time," Mrs. Storms said. "It's not that much work for anyone person, it's not that much money for any one person, if we can all just get behind it."

From the 1700s to the early 1800s, the triangular strip of land was used as a burial place for the first settlers of the Round Hill section of town. In all, there are about a few dozen gravestones at the site. A few have names carved in them, although most are plain fieldstones.

William Finch, the town historian, said the cemetery was likely in use since the founding of the Round Hill community in the early 1700s, and remained the community's burying place until it was supplanted by one at the First Church of Round Hill. At the time, Round Hill was a farming community, and stonemasons were expensive and far away. "The settlers had common stones," he said.

Not all the fieldstones may mark the remains of the Round Hill farmer. According to Jeffrey Mead, a local historian who specializes in old graveyards, some of the stones may mark the bodies of members of the British raiding party ambushed during the Revolutionary War.

The public appeal by Mr. Mead first moved Mrs. Storms to try to organize some type of cleanup effort for the graveyard. At the time, the cemetery was a little more than "a weed patch," she recalled, but she said she felt she could do something with the support of her neighbors.

While neighborhood aesthetics were an important consideration for Mrs. Storms, she added there were others as well.

"I feel some responsibility to the community where I live, whether it's Greenwich or a smaller community," she said. "Something that's got this much history tied up in it is very important. I think it's a real shame if you don't care about it."

In clearing out the land, Mrs. Storms was not alone. A Boy Scout group from Round Hill, Troop 37, helped out as well.

Anne Adler, a Lake Avenue who resident participated in the clean-up effort, said many of the fieldstone markers were not even visible when they started work, buried as they were beneath branches in other plant debris.

"This was in March, before the spring growth, so it was clearing out a lot of old dead stuff," she said. "Everyone got a good case of poison ivy."

Despite the pitfalls of such work, Mrs. Adler said the children involved, who range in age from 10 to 14, seemed to enjoy the work and learning about the cemeteries history. Stories about the possible British dead were particularly interesting to them, she said.

Mrs. Storms estimated that it will cost $100 a month just to keep the cemetery grass cut, plus other kinds of landscaping expenses. So far, the first-year funds for lawn cutting have already been raised. But she isn't sure about its long-term prospects. Twice as many people were contacted as actually offered some form of help, although she added no one was pressed to donate their time or money, and people who did not reply to an initial mailing asking for help were not contacted again.

"We're not going to go around dunning people," she said. "Once they didn't contact me after the first letter, I didn't bother them."

Mrs. Adler said she is enthusiastic about the prospects for continued care of Burying Hill Cemetery. The emergence of a Boy Scout troop in the community, she said, seems to provide a ready source of labor for an annual clean up the effort she anticipate would be necessary.

Susan Tritschler, director of the Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich, expressed enthusiasm for the effort and added she hopes it will spread to other parts of town, where old community cemeteries like the one at Burying Hill are falling into neglect. "It takes other people like Val who are interested in history to start something like that, "she said.

Bill Slocum

"Old Cemetery in Unkempt State is Brought to Light in Milbrook (Davis Plot, 1937)

Source: Greenwich News Graphic
Thursday, May 6, 1937

*See also this piece on the Davis family burying ground at The Writings of Jeffrey Bingham Mead.

Recent investigation has brought to light, in an unsettled corner of the land owned by the Millbrook Holding Company, a family burial ground referred to in histories of Greenwich as "the Davis Plot at White Bridge."

Excerpted from Judge Hubbard's book Other Days in Greenwich.

It is called the Davis plot after the line of Davises who settled in Greenwich in the early days and became active in the life of the town. White Bridge was the name given to the railroad bridge over Brother's Creek is it flowed toward the Sound and the historic Davis Mill near the bridge over the dam in Bruce Park.

The old grist mill was built by Thomas Davis in 1689 for his sons, Elisha and Stephen. It stood for more than 200 years. During the Revolution, Elisha was found guilty of selling grain to the Tories and was obliged to leave Greenwich. His brother was allowed to continue the operation. Thomas Davis died in 1774.

Today the small burying ground is in unkempt condition. Leaves and trees have introduced themselves upon the scene. Most of the tombstones have fallen over, while some have disappeared. Refuse has been thrown carelessly around the stones.

From Historian Spencer P. Mead's Abstract of Greenwich Connecticut Tombstones. 

The names on the graves are those three families – Ryker, Davis and Hubbard. The majority are those of the Ryker family. Those of this family still legible are as follows: Henry, son of John and Esther Ryker, who died June 16, 1829, age 25 years; Elizabeth Anne, twin daughter of John and Esther Ryker, died March 29, 1834, aged 18 years; John Ryker, who died July 15, 1835, age 56 years, and James V. Ryker, died Feb. 3, 1862, aged 54 years.

There is another tombstone for two other Ryker children, James and Eliza Anne, son and daughter of John and Esther. James died in 1801, aged 17 days, while Eliza Anne died in 1814, aged eight months.

Only one Davis inscription can be seen today, that of Josiah T. Davis, son of Stephen and Mary Davis, who died Aug. 5, 1794, in his 27th year. This stone is the oldest in the cemetery. Josiah was the grandson of the builder of the mill and the son of him whom the settlers here allowed to run the mill after his brother was forced to leave town.

The Davis Plot as it appears in 2014 (fenced-in area). 

The Hubbard family has one stone in the cemetery, bearing the inscription, "In memory of Julia, daughter of Butler and Clarissa Hubbard, age 28 years, 1829."

In the tombstone records presented to the town by the historian, the late Spencer P. Mead, and at present in the town clerk's office, the cemetery is called "the Davis Plot at White Bridge, north of the east end of Railroad Avenue, Borough of Greenwich."

When Mr. Mead collected his data, he found ten stones and inscriptions. The stone bearing the name of Elisha Davis who died in 1813 cannot be found today. Another grave which is also disappeared was that of John Ryker, who died in 1854, aged 72 years. Otherwise, the stones that Mr. Mead examined are still intact today.

According to Arthur D. Benson of New York, descendent of the Davis family, the first stone of the old Greenwich Graphic was taken from the cemetery. Mr. Benson was told this by his grandmother, Mrs. Emeline J. Benson. He does not know whether the stone it was a Davis headstone or that of one of the other branches of the family.

Near the grist mill was the Davis homestead, later the home of Mr. Davis' grandmother. Mr. Benson further writes that the Davises of Greenwich married into the Hubbard family, Bush family and others, explaining why only one stone bears the inscription of Davis.

A Graveyard Shift for History (June, 1988)

by Andre Thibault, Staff Writer
Greenwich Time, Greenwich, Connecticut
June, 1988

(Caption: Robbie Mackenzie rakes leaves yesterday from around tombstones at the Cherry Hill Cemetery. Staff photo by Mel Greer).

Lawrence Hutchison Douglas touched history and got his hands dirty yesterday.

Douglas, 14, a ninth-grader at Greenwich Country Day School, spent most 0f the day pulling weeds, hauling logs and scraping dirt off gravestones at Cherry Hill Cemetery off Stanwich Road.

This is an image of the cemetery captured by Ferris-descendant Suzanne Baetz, on June 14, 2015.

Douglas said he undertook the mission not only to earn the rank of Eagle Scout, but also out of respect for history and the dead. "I'd hate to be one of the forgotten stones in the cemetery and have a log pile on my stone," he said.

As the sounds of the rock group Def Leppard rang from a portable stereo through the wooded area that was once part of the Lockwood family farm, Douglas pointed to the tombstone of a Revolutionary War soldier, Ezekiel Reynolds, who lived from 1747 to 1833. Another stone, of Nathaniel Ferris, 1702-1764, was the oldest found yesterday. 

"I have fun reading the gravestones," Douglas said. "I mainly enjoy American history.

Others in the group of about 10 other Scouts, their leaders, and members of the Greenwich Historical Society, had a more personal stake in the work.

Mabie said the Lockwood Farm once took up more than 200 acres on both sides of Stanwich Road, before it was broken up in the 1850s.

"I sometimes come here to get away," said Mabie, holding a rake in his calloused hands. "To know that my family has been in Greenwich since the mid-1600s and that many of them are here gives me a sense of place."

He believes that his great-great-great-grandfather, Thaddeus Lockwood, is buried somewhere in the western corner of the cemetery. Lockwood, a farmer, lived from 1719 to 1812.

The cleanup project was organized by Jeffrey Mead, 29, of Cos Cob, a graduate student and cemetery caretaker.

Mead, a Historical Society member, noticed about three years ago that his family cemetery off Relay Place was turning into a wasteland. Chicken wire, glass and plastic bottles had been dumped nearby, and the grass was about two feet high. He spent the last three years cleaning up the mess, and he did such a good job, his family gave him the cemetery.

"Usually people start out getting a house," he said. "I guess Ive done it backwards."

The Society noticed his wrk, said the group's president, Claire Vanderbilt, and Mead was appointed chairman of the Burial Grounds Committee.

While working toward a master's degree in teaching at Manhattanville College, Mead is also compiling a book of epitaph poems. He said he hopes to have the book ready by Halloween.

He looked at one of the epitaphs yesterday, on the stone of Job Austin, who died Aug. 11, 1779, at the age of 46.

"Remember me as you pass by," it said. "For as you are now, so once was I. As I am, so you must be. Prepare for death, and follow me."

The letters of the last few words are smaller, Mead said, because space was running out on the stone.

"It's pretty morbid," he said, laughing.

In a more serious vein, Mead said the students doing more than just pushing dirty around and tidying up. "This is historic preservation," he said, "but we try to make it festive with the radio, music and pizza."

John Tracy, 13, an eighth grader at Greenwich Elementary School agreed.

In between bites of pizza, Tracy said he saw several dimensions to the project. "I'm killing three birds with one stone," he said, "my confirmation project, my Scout project and a school assignment."

Reader Behold As You Pass By (1991)

by Billie Lauricella, Special Correspondent

We'll never know her story, Jeffrey Bingham Mead said sadly, looking across the tiny cemetery with its three ancient gravestones to the field and pond beyond. A white mist rose from the ice-covered pond like a shroud hiding the past.

Sarah Gardner lies beneath the stone on the right, where Mr. Mead stood pensively. Sarah, aged 21, was en route from New York to Boston when she became ill and was escorted off the stagecoach in Cos Cob. She died on Oct. 24, 1795, and was buried in the old burying ground on Strickland Road. No one knows who carved her stone: "Behold and think as you pass by/as you are now s once was I/As I am now so you must be/Prepare to die and follow me."

The other two marked plots hold Mr. Mead's own ancestors-Benjamin Mead, died Feb. 22, 1746, the oldest known Mead grave in town; and obadiah Mead, died April 27, 1759. Both stones display the winged soul motif symbolizing immortality.

Mr. Mead, specializes in graveyards, and is chairman of the Burying Grounds Committee of The Histoerical Society of the Town of Greenwich and president/curator of the Historic Mead Family Burying Grounds Association. he is presenting an interpretive slide-lecture series, "Our Hallowed Grounds," at the Greenwich Arts Center.

The next talk in the series, titled "Reader Behold As You Pass By: The Epitaphs," is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. tomorrow in the meeting room of the arts center, 299 Greenwich Ave.

Mr. Mead's mission is to preserve the town's heritage, not just his family's but that of fellow descendants of the town's founders.

With 65 cemeteries scattered around town, Greenwich has one of the largest concentrations of burying grounds in Connecticut, Mr. Mead explained. Some have only one or two graves; others display row upon row of markers of all types. Many early stones are carved with expressive and enduring examples of American folk art: death-heads, winged faces, willow trees, and religious motifs.

Just as these stones recall an earlier time, contemporary stones reflect today's culture, Mr. Mead said. One in Putnam Cemetery has sheet music carved on it; others bear caducei, scales, even Mickey Mouse.

Although he grew up in Greenwich, Mr. Mead's interest in historical preservation developed after he left home. "I visited one of the family plots (there are three in town) in the winter of eighty-four," he said. "It was a mess so I cleaned it up. That's how I got started."

He organized periodic cleanups of neglected cemeteries, wrote short articles for Greenwich Time, and started researching and recording data. "One thing begat another," he said. "I had no idea when I cleaned up the family plot that I'd be doing a lecture series." He is also working on a book about the gravestones that his sister will illustrate.

When Mr. Mead moved to Norwalk, where he now lives, part of Greenwich moved with him. Friends tell him his home is a condo version of Bush-Holley House. "I've got all the old wall paper and chair rails," he said with a chuckle.

He hopes to teach in the Greenwich continuing education program in the fall, but "Right now, in my spare time, I'm doing a lot of research. I'm very detailed-oriented about the things I like to present to people, so I want to be as accurate as possible."

Having a master's degree in teaching from manhattanville College has helped him in this pursuit.

"A lot of it is packaging and structuring information, and dispensing it to interested people," he said.

He has never seen a ghost or anything other-worldly in his visits to area graveyards. About the strangest thing that ever happened was a barbecue that took place in the cemetery. "I was mortified," he said. "In a way it was sacrilegious. There are forms of etiquette for all different events, even visiting graveyards."

His walks among the dead and his study of death's symbols hasn't made him morbid, Mr. Mead said. Instead, it has given him a greater appreciation of life.

"People think if you run around graveyards long enough you have a cloud over your head and you wear black all the time," he said. "I've got a better dimension of what my forebears and the other residents and settlers of Greenwich were really like. I get the impression that life may not have been as sophisticated as it is today, but it was more wholesome, more spiritual, and you see that in their epitaphs."

---------------

For more informations on Mr. Mead's talk, call him at 849-1464.