Morning journal and courier., 1884-10-31
Here lies the body of EnW DD HIT DON

Here lies the body of
 Practitioner in Physics and Chirwgery. Born in
 Bedfordshire, England, in the year of Lord
 1542 Was contemporary with. and one Of the
 pallbearers of, William Shakespeare, of the Avon.
 After brief illness his spirit ascended in the year of our Lord 161S-aged 76.
 The stone which bears this epitaph for
 merly stood in St. Georges churchyard, but
 whether it was removed when the church
 was enlarged, few years before the war, at
 which time many old slabs were taken up
 and piled in a corner, or was cleared away with others when General Burnside unneces- sarily cut road through the yard during the
 war, is not known. The epitaph awakens so
 much interest that it is singular no one can
 explain about it's history. The Times cor
 respondent says: The records show that this
 county (Spottsy1vania) was not established
 until 1720, just one hundred and two years after Dr. Heldon is described as having died and been buried at the county-seat. St. Georges society-in whose graveyard the Heldon slab stood until it found it's way to the Masonic yard, where it now lies under locust-was not founded until 1730, or one hundred and twelve years after Heldon's death It is probable that there were burials in the graveyard before the church was built, as there must have been settlement in the county before it asked to be named. But Jamestown was founded only in 1907, and
 for many years after that the surrounding country was too full of adventure and dan ger to risk stretching out the infant colony. Among the early accounts of the colony of Virginia, the most quaint and interesting is by Colonel William Boyd, who had become large land owner here and crossed the Allan tic about 1730 to view his possessions and to write about the trip. He visited Fredericks- burg in 1732 and says of it:
 Besides Colonel Willis, who is the top of the place, there are only merchant tailor, smith, an ordinary keeper and lady who acts both as doctress and cofee-woman- A small church has just been built.
 This perhaps was the village. The pioneer settlement thereabout seems not to have been worth mention Not a word is said of the graveyard or its historical occupant. It \ seems hardly possible that if the stone was l here Colonel Boyd's attention was not called | to it, or that having seen it he could fail to \ make note of it. Nor does wonder stop \ with this. Dr. Heldon was seventy-four years old when Shakespeare died in 1616 and l seventy-six years old at his own death. He | had surely reached an age when it could be 1 no object to him to seek a new country for gain or adventure. It is presumable that whatever possibilities the future had for him ' were at home, and extraordinary that though he might brave a slow ocean voyage to 8 | strange and distant land, he should at once thereafter, at that age, plunge into the peri | lous wilderness.
 History, unfortunately, is very scant and
  rounding Shakespeare's death and burial No detailed account of the funeral was left | even by his close friends. It is hard, how | ever, to what motive there could be in ' falsifying such Q matter on tombstone. ' The wonder is less whether Dr. Heldon came to Fredericksburg after his last service to his I poet friend than how the tombstone got here \ or when it came. Bishop Meade, in his min | ute history of St. Georges parish, does not I allude to it. Nor does Timothy Alden, the 1 great epitaph hunter, seem to have seen it, all ! though he found much that was interesting \ for his book in St. Georges churchyard. | Whatever escaped his double lenses was | hardly worth finding. Yet old residents here have known of the stone ever since they could remember They heard of it from 1 their parents and some of them have seen it. l The old sexton at St. Georges says he has l heard "heaps of people talk about it." One of the best posted men in regard to this geo. l ton is Samuel Knox, who is a vestryman at ! St. George's He is the grandson of Basil 1 Gordon, of the family for whom Gordons- \ vile is named. Colonel Gordon came here before the Revolution and made fortune | shipping tobacco. MT. Knox well remem- bers the stone. It stood, he said, probably | in the line of Burnside's road through the graveyard. It was considerably battered ! from his early recollection and had settled l quite deep in the ground, the exposed end | leaning at an angle of about forty-five de- q | How it drifted over into the Masonic ground \ is of the war mysteries, but there it \ is flat on its back, under @ tangle of weeds l and creepers, with the upper corner chipped f off and the old English lettering dim, but ] traceable.
 There is preserved in town copy of the ! Fredericksburg Gazette, published in 1754, | which bears evidence that the stone was then feature of the place in tribute to | it in verse, as follows: | In the old churchyard at Fredericksburg A gravestone stands to-day, ! Marking the place where grave has been, Though many and many a year has it seen Since its tenant moldered away. And that quaintly carved old stone I Tells it's simple tale to alls
 ! Here lies a bearer of the pail At mighty Shakespeares funeral There in the churchyard at Fredericksburg wandered all alone;
 | Thinking sadly on empty fame, | How the great dead are but name To few are they really known | Then on the battered stone
 | My listleSs eye did fall, Where lay bearer of the pail ! At mighty Shakespeare's funeral. There in the churchyard at Fredericksburg = It seemed as though the air | Was filled with phantoms sweeping by, Fitting along before my eye,
 | So sad, so sweet so fair.
 | Towering about this stone,
 | By some strange spirits call. I Where lay bearer of the pail | At mighty Shakespeare's funeral. For in the churchyard at Fredericksburg I Juliet seemed to love,
 | Hamlet unused and old Lear fell | Beatrice laughed and Ariel | Cleaned through the sky above | As here, beneath this stone
 | Lay, in his narrow hall,
 l He who before had borne the pail I At mighty ShakeSpeare's funeral. l AsI left this haunt at Fredericksburg, r1S toll