Tombstone Tuesday ~ Hannah Cotton, Derry, New Hampshire

 This ledger style tombstone was photographed at the Forest Hill Cemetery in Derry, New Hampshire.

HANNAH

wife of

NATHL COTTON

and daughter of

Joseph & Sally

EASTMAN

of Deerfield, NH

DIED

April 15, 1838

aged 44 years

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Let me go for songs seraphic

Now seem calling from the sky:

Tis the welcome of the angels

Which e'en now are hov'ring nigh

Let me go, they wait to bear me

To the mansions of the blest;

Where the spirit worn and weary

Finds at last its long sought rest.

This is a wonderful early Victorian era stone, with the finger pointing up to the angel in flight.  The carvings are very deeply engraved, and have survived being face up in the New Hampshire weather.  

I had trouble deciphering the epitaph on this tombstone, so I Googled the first line.  One of the search results was from Google Book Search.  The book is The Christian Pioneer, a Monthly Magazine,  London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co., edited by J. F. Winks, Volume II, 1848.  This poem by William Baxter was found on page 30.  I have pasted the poem below:

Another book which came up in the search results was A Manual of American Literature, by John Seely Hart, page 369. "Rev. William Baxter, 1820 -------, of New Lisbon, Ohio, has published some poems of great merit.  Mr. Baxter was born in Leeds, England, and emigrated with his parents to the United States in the year 1828.  He received his education at Bethany College, Virginia, graduating in 1845.  After leaving College he engaged in the ministry.  He preached one year in Pittsburgh, Pa., three years in Port Gibson, Miss., seven years at Woodville, Miss., next at Baton Rouge, La, then at Fayetteville, Ark., at which place he also occupied the position of President of Arkansas College.  The college was broken up and destroyed in the war. In 1863 he came to Cincinnati, and remained there between two and three years, preaching and engaged in literary labors.... His hymn called Let Me Go has found its way into at least a dozen hymn-books and collections of sacred music."

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo