This is a very unusual tombstone, handmade by a folk artist of some skill, the way the early settlers’ tombstones were made, but as late as 1871. Almost all English-speaking craftsmen were put out of business by the mechanized monument industry in the 1840s, but in German-speaking communities local craftsmen continued to work until the early twentieth century, and that is our explanation. The church that owned this cemetery was originally a German church, and other handmade tombstones in the cemetery are in German; here an English-speaking family must have hired a German craftsman.

The inscription is mostly legible, but Father Pitt was unable to interpret some of the numbers:

…the Memory
of
Letitia Lee
Consort of Joseph Lee
Who departed this life
July —th A. D. 1871
Aged — years 10 mths
— days

Note the term “consort,” already well out of fashion, but the usual term for “wife” on tombstones of the late 1700s and early 1800s. Mr. Lee or his stonecutter had very old-fashioned tastes.