A matched pair of monuments in a late version of the romantic style that was popular in the middle 1800s. August Abbott was born in Saxony, but his inscription is in English, suggesting that his family—unlike many German immigrant families—Americanized in one generation.
The monuments are signed by the stonecutters, and the signatures are different.
Boggs & Lindsey, if we read correctly.
Alex. Boggs—again if we read correctly. Perhaps Lindsey retired or died.
A certain strain of romanticism is common in monuments of the 1800s, but few go to such extremes of romanticism as this. The profusion of vine-covered vines overwhelms the composition so much that at first it is hard to make any visual sense of the thing. How many different kinds of vines can you identify? Father Pitt finds at least passionflowers, morning glories, and ivy, and the top may be roses, although the erosion makes it hard to tell. If the enormous urn-flower at the foot end came from a vine, it was a vine that wants to eat you.
If there was ever an inscription, it is illegible now; but since the monument occupies a space in the Lewis family plot, we may presume that it belongs to some Lewis or other.
