Tombstone Tuesday ~ A Very Worn Ledger Stone

This tombstone was photographed at the Village Cemetery in Wethersfield, Connecticut, behind the First Church of Christ on Main Street.

Here

lies Interr'd

the Body of

Capt. Thomas

Wells who Deceased

September the 21st

1741, in the 63rd

Year of his

Age.

P. NELSON 2014

This very worn ledger stone was intriguing.  The soft sandstone was completely worn, but someone had recently altered it by adding a new plaque on top with what I assume is the original inscription.   

This tombstone is listed in the very complete book Wethersfield Inscriptions: A complete record of the inscriptions in the five burial places in the ancient town of Wethersfield, by Edward Sweetser Tillotson, 1899, page 136.   Perhaps this is how the descendants figured out what to put on the new plaque?  Note that the book was written in 1899, and the replacement plaque is dated 2014 - plenty of time for the soft sandstone to wear away.  

I have seen descendants erect replacement stones for ancestors, but this is the first time I have ever seen a tombstone altered with additional materials to replace the epitaph. 

For more information on the Wethersfield Ancient Burying Ground and Village Cemetery, see this website for photos, transcriptions and GPS coordinates of each stone:
http://wethersfieldhistory.org/burying-ground

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Tombstone Tuesday ~ A Very Worn Ledger Stone", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 7, 2016,  ( http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/06/tombstone-tuesday-very-worn-ledger-stone.html:  accessed [access date]).