Concord Stories from Special Collections: Episode 7: The Stones Cry Out
Concord Stories from Special Collections is a virtual series that highlights the rich holdings of the Concord Free Public Library Corporation’s William Munroe Special Collections through stories about Concord’s people and places from a variety of guests, including Concord residents, scholars, researchers, and curators.
Episode 7 of the series features John Hanson in a presentation titled The Stones Cry Out: Epitaphs Carved by Ithamar Spauldin of Concord.
John Hanson has been collecting and studying early New England epitaph verse for years. This presentation will share some representative verse from local gravestones and discuss their sources, including Scripture, hymnody, lyric poetry, and epitaphs made to order for a particular individual. The presentation will consider these epitaphs in the context of the work of one eighteenth-century Concord stone carver, Ithamar Spauldin, and his remarkably detailed account book, preserved in the William Munroe Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library.
John Hanson is a Berkshires native and business executive in Cambridge. He is the author of a soon-to-be-released book, Reading the Gravestones of Old New England, available online or from your local independent bookstore.
