Anne Williams

Source: Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society

In Memory
of Mrs. ANNE;
Wife of Mr.
JOHN WILLIAMS
Who died
June 23d, 1771
in her 51st Year

 Come think on Death
Prepare to die.

This is about as lean a rendering of the message of The Classic as you will find anywhere. The epitaph challenges the reader to reflect and prepare, without any of the traditional rhetorical devices of “remember me” or “stop as you pass by,” let alone the proposition that “as you are now, so once was I.”  It is The Classic distilled to its essence.

Note too the hauntingly bleak face of the soul effigy, with its blank eyes and downturned mouth. If this is a winged cherub, it is a chilling one. 

This stone has been attributed to the Stebbins Family of carvers; I have not found any other recurrence of this simple two-line text.