In
memory
of
NANCY OWENS
who departed this life
july 31st 1824,
aegd 19 years
Two more works of the stonecutter we identify as the Master of the Erratic Centering, whose erratic centering and aversion to capitalization are both on display here. Both Nancy and Samuel died as young adults. Were they a young married couple, or were they brother and sister?
In
memory
of
SAMUEL OWENS
who departed this life august 2nd
1827 aged 28 years
An 1821 tombstone that appears to be another work of the Master of the Erratic Centering, whom we identify by his erratic centering and his aversion to capitalization—note, for example, the spelling “december.”
In
memory
of
JAMES OWENS
who departed this life
december 17th 1821
aged 56 years
An 1829 tombstone typical of the Hiland Cemetery. We can identify this particular stonecutter by two very distinctive traits: his erratic centering and his avoidance of capital letters and punctuation. We shall call him the Master of the Erratic Centering.
Nothing is particularly outstanding about these tombstones, except that they are nearly two hundred years old and still quite legible.
IN
Memory of
ELIZABETH HERRIOTT
Consort of
GEORGE HERRIOTT
Who departed this life
August the 29th A.D. 1819
aged 46 years.
IN
Memory of
GEORGE HERRIOTT
Who departed this life
December the 2d A.D. 1826
aged 61 years.
A tombstone for a young mother and her child. Elizabeth died at two months in 1839. Two months later her mother died as well. Did she die of the same disease? Cholera was very popular in Pittsburgh in the 1830s, but there seems to have been a lull in the epidemics in 1839. Perhaps Nancy died of grief, as mothers often did in those days. (Today we would look for another diagnosis, but modern medical science agrees that psychological factors play a large role in the body’s ability to overcome serious ailments.) Grief also reached epidemic proportions in the nineteenth century, when childhood mortality was, by our standards, appalling.
