Orthography | Colonial page

Spelling, Reading, and Carving

These images illustrate the work of carvers who probably could not read the words they were carving. The corrected errors must have been noticed by people who could read but the suggested fixes went awry. On Bithiah Fisk's stone in Lexington, r was left out of pleasure but the insertion wound up before the e of the next word here, "pleasue herre."




In South Hadley, an "Ifnant."
And the most bizarre of all, a reversed "arise" angel on Margaret Cumings stone in Billerica South burying ground. These stones were carved in the Lamson shop in Charlestown and it does seem strange that a carver would be unaware of letter orientations even if he could not read the words. This tympanum may have been carved by an apprentice who flipped the stencil to put the angel on the left.

Orthography | Colonial page