It looks as though the family of G. Aten could not afford to have a tombstone made by a local craftsman. But this improvised marker has lasted better than most of the professionally made stones in the cemetery, and now that it has passed the two-century mark we may pronounce it an unqualified success.
in Memory of
William Gordon
Who Departed this life
April the 26th, 1812, in the 67
year of his age.
Our old friend the Master of the Curly G is instantly identifiable here. He does not have an opportunity to show off his distinctive lower-case G (the only example is covered in lichens), but his other peculiarities are instantly apparent: the sunburst, his habit of beginning the inscription with a lower-case letter, the distinctive lower-case a, the exaggerated curl of the 2, the swooping tail of the 7, and a number of other quirks you may discover for yourself by comparing his work here with his tombstones in the Robinson Run and Union cemeteries.
If you enlarge the picture, you can see that this craftsman actually incised rules in the stone to guide his lettering. He seems to have goofed a bit and missed leaving a blank half-line after the name of the deceased, but at least his lettering is mostly straight.
Several of the damaged tombstones in the Montours Cemetery have been duplicated in modern granite, which is a very good idea but costs some money. The broken stone of Ann Burns is still completely legible, and as a bonus it includes the name of the craftsman who inscribed it: Lanston S. Wilkins of Pittsburgh.
IN
Memory
OF
ANN BURNS
Who departed this life
Nov. 3rd 1840
In the 88 year
of her age.
Lanston S. Wilkins
Pitt••
The grieving husband of a wife who died far too young quotes Proverbs 31:12, translating it into Picksburgh dialect.
IN
Memory of
MARGARET McMAHAN
who departed this Life
February 17th 1828 in the 24
[year] of her age.
And she done him good and not harm all the days of her life.
John Hall was a Revolutionary War private. The year on his stone is crusted over with lichens; from the style of the stone, Father Pitt might guess it was carved in the 1820s.
This marker probably has birth and death dates on a last line invisible under the lawn. When he returns to the cemetery, old Pa Pitt will try to remember to pull away the growth.
Lette S. Hall, probably John’s wife, is buried next to him. We believe we are reading the stone correctly, but some erosion in the middle makes us a little uncertain. She died September 11, 1836; we cannot read her age with an certainty. It might be 54, in which case she would have been during the Revolution and might have been an unmarried daughter instead of a wife.
