Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1890-06-10
ON BABIES, GRAVES.

CuriosIties Seen in the Ancient Cemetery
of Washington Colored People.
A little child's tea set spread out upon a
new made grave. What could be more
pathetica The tiny cups and dishes all
carefully arranged as if for a make believe
party, with small tea pot in the middle
But the mite of girl who should play the
hostess at the lilliputian feast is lying cold
and stiff in wooden box buried three feet
beneath the mound of fresh earth wherein
the tea set is arrayed.
The little grave is but one of thousands
such huddled together in an old colored
peoples cemetery out towards the north
west, beyond the city limits and close by
the bank of Rock creek. Acre upon acre
of the inclosure is so thickly occupied by
the dead that the graves adjoin one anoth-
er row upon row without an inch of space
between to set the foot upon. No verdure
conceals betneath its green carpet the
crowded hillOcks of clay and gravel, nor
do costly monuments arise to commend
rate the virtues of the departed. There
are not even headstones, but usually slabs
of wood instead, most of them merely
shingles and old scraps of board stuck into
the ground, and all this not because of
any lack of love or reverence, but simply
for the reason that the builders of this me-
cropolis are poor.
On the piece of board at the head of the
grave where the tea set is spread out is
this inscription:
MedoRA Even
INA SCOTT
Sleep
in JEAS.
AGED yrs OLD.
This is by no means the only grave on
which toys and such things are to be seen
displayed On the contrary nearly every
little mound of earth that covers child's
coffin exhibits some relics of the sort.
Near by is shingle serving the purpose Of
a head stone, against which is tied with
Irvine dolls chair with a china doll sit
ting in it. The dolls dress has had all the
color washed out of it by the rain, but 1t
still sits there patiently as it has sat for
many a month, waiting for it's mistress to
pick it up when the day shall arrive and
carry it before the Judgment seat.
On grave not far off is tin box full Of
empty spools-once doubtless used for play
things to beguile baby hours-and mouth
organ. Tied to another head board is a
pair of little reins and scattered over the
mound are several dominoes A grave that
is marked simply "No. 1"-may be the
child had got no name-was adorned mere
ly with stoppered nursing bottle.
The nursing bottles seemed to be of all
things the most frequent decoration of the
graves-certainly the most pitiful. AS a
rule they were partly filled with mud
washed into them by the storms. But they
were not by any means the only kind of
bottles to be noticed on the mounds. Medi-
cine bottles were there in Peterborough,
indeed, to supply an apothecary's shop with
glassware. AS well as could be discovered,
it was much the fashion to place on grave
all the medicine bottles emptied by the de-
ceased during the last and fatal illness.
Thus one was enabled to surmise at
glance whether or not the sickness had been
very long or complicated.o Some graves
would have only two or three bottles, while
others would make a showing of as many
as fifteen. Many of the medicine bottles
on the other hand were partly full.
One head board bore the epitaph: