The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-10-19
IN OLDEN CONNECTICUT
SOME EPITApHS CHARiCTERIsTIC
 OF THIS C0MMON WEdLTH.

Gathered in Summer Rambles-Graphic
 Stories and Strange Traits of Character
 Revealed on Brier-Buried GTavestones
 of the Days Before These Inscriptions
 Went Ont of Fa hIon.
 The recent newspaper account of the partial destruction of the gravestone of Noah Webster, Esq.," in the Old Burying ground in West Hartford, by relic hunters who mistake it for that marking the grave of the noted Con- necticut dictionary maker, was the means of leading an old antiquarian, the other day, to show me his note books of characteristic epitaphs of Connecti- cut, which he has filled during the rambles of many summers about this commonwealth. This mania for break ing off bits of the tombstones of dis .tinguished dead is characteristic of the human family" said the antiqua- rian,as he unfolded his mortuary mem orabil'a; 'but now that the old descrip- tive eptaphs have gone out of fashion. I predict that the collection of these inscriptions in books, as I have done, will eventually become a source of en- tertainment to lovers of our past his tory, that will take the place of the present tendency to vandalism"
 Connecticut is the repository of thou- sands of historically interesting, an- cient, brier- buried and epithaphed gravestones. Perhaps none of the orig inal states has a larger store of them. In the whole collection of the antiqua- rian-which includes u profusion Of such ilustrious rames as that of Hook CT, the Constitution maker, and Cover nors Haynes, Wyllys and Leete in the old burying ground in this city; large aggregation from the Grove street cem- etery in New Haven, the final resting place of more persons worthy Of eml- nence for their work, it has been said, than in any other cemetery in Ameri- ca, such as the Sillimans, Shermans, Sheffields, Foote's, Whitneys Winthrops, Websters, Beechers, Danas, Dwlghts and others, the Saltonstalls, Brewsters and Shapleys of New London; the Buckinghams of Norwich the Trum- bulls of Lenanon, and the Tallmadges and the Governors Wolcott of Litchfield in the whole collection, no entry is more interesting than that concerning the epitaph on the tombstone of that eminent divine, Dr. Samuel Johnson of Stratford. Dr. Johnson was the man whom Dr. Dwight called the father of Episcopacy in Connecticut, and who was at one time president of Columbia college.
 He was the Yale graduate and Pres oJo xxyIn narlU in the seventeen hundreds, changed his relig. ious faith from Presbyterianism to that of the English church Stratford was the spot chosen for the first assault or that stronghold of Presbyterianism,' as Connecticut was then regarded, ane in those days of fierce religious conflict and animosities the young apostle is said to have borne the brunt of them
 At any rate there Was much feeling against Dr. Johnson in some quarters
 He was buried in Stratford and hi!
 grave is especially attractive from tht fact that the inscription has been re
 moved from the weather-worn ant
 messy sandstone table over it. This in scription was engraved on a leader plate let into the tombstone, after th'
 manner of ante e-Revolutionary times and which some accounts say, was talk en and cast into bullets for the patrio army during the Revolution. On th'
 other hand others asserted that th' plate was removed by the Presbyter
 ians, whose hatred of the doctor ex tended to the rifiing of his tomb. Tht former hypothesis is doubtless the cor rect one, for in most of the ancien church yards of Connecticut where this form of memorial occurs, the plates were in nearly every instance taken fol melting into Revolutionary bullets.
 Throughout the old graveyards o Groton, Stonington and Ledyard, tht seeker after epitaphs constantly en counters reminders of one of Benedic 2 Arnold's acts of treachery to his moth < CT country the massacre of Fort Gris < wold at GrotQn in 17s1. The victims o s this terrible slaughter were buried a < the points indicated, and in almost ev cry instance, patriotic grief and indig $ nation found vent by carving over thei headstones the following
 "......,....... ..............'.'' '..'...F # A Victim of Traitor Arnold's Murdering Corps.
 .......s.......'... ...o.....
 Benedict Arnold would have stood { good chance for a speedy death could tht New London county people have lait @ hands on him in those troubouS hours