State

In ancient Beaufort, many a tale is told by silent tombstones. Musings in an Old Graveyard Old Samuel Lcffcrs from Beaufort wrote Brother John in New York thusly on April 9, 1806: "I wrote my own epitaph some years ago and al- iough it may never be engraved on itone. you may read it for your amuse¬ ment, "Praises on tombs are vainly spent Good deeds arc man’s best monument. Having thus hinted at what ought to >c man’s principal concern, I now dc- cend to the common affairs of the vorld.” I It was 16 years before Samuel died, •ut the inscription was used and can till be deciphered on an ancient mark- r in the old burying ground at Bcau- Prt. The burying ground grew around the uilding used for reading the service f the Anglican Church of St. John’s arish. In it lie scores of others whose I ves date back before the birth of our >untry. There arc even those who, like illiam Robertson and Jacob Shepard, ved and died subjects of George II id George III. They never saw the ars and Stripes, and when in pa- otic mood they sang, it was not America’’ but "God save our Gracious King Long live our Noble King." There arc no stones for the first 60 ars that the burying ground was used, ic town was surveyed in 1713, the Я has always been public property, d we assume that it was a graveyard !>m the beginning. It is conceivable V1 some of the unmarked graves rep- i ent victims of the Indian Wars, their pills cleft with tomahawks of hostile :< rc or Nous Indians, for it was rc- t'rdcd in 1716 that the section had 'cen depopulated by the late Indian V and Massacre." Earliest graves We marked with shells or cypress sbs, for stone markers had to be bught from afar by sailing vessel, lerc arc scores now marked only with *odcn slabs or pyramids of crumbling Te STATE. February 7. 19S9 1 1 lie accompany ini article ic MVen from a pam- l<« ditlclbulcd b> the Beaufort Chamber of moicrce.) brick. Characteristic of a certain period are graves bricked over in an attempt to protect them from water and the winds that swept unhindered over the place. Some stones of a later day arc "signed" indicating from where they came, as, "T. Walker, Meeting Street, Charleston, S. C." Reminiscent of 1776 Col. William Thompson, the highest ranking officer from Beaufort to serve in the American Revolution, lies in a grave marked by a simple stone which docs not even give his rank. He was declared "The most influential man of his day" in Carteret. A New Bern mer¬ chant from County Downs. Ireland, he married in Beaufort, had a home on Front Street, served the Town and County and Province in innumerable olliccs, and was a delegate to the Con¬ vention at Hillsborough and to the Provisional Congress at Halifax. On his plantation west of Newport River, Governor William Try on is said to have been a frequent guest. In the north of the burying ground is a grave four feet square. Legend says this is the grave of an unknown British Officer. Before he died, he requested that his body be buried standing up in full dress uniform. "Resting ’ncath a foreign ground. Here stands a sailor of Mad George's crown. Name unknown, and all alone. Standing in the Rebel's Ground." (Brantley) War of 1812 Scarcely were we out of the Revolu¬ tion before the War of 1812 disrupted ( Continued on page 20) Tomb of Coplain Otwoy Burnt, surmounted by о gun token from bis boot, the Pri.otcer "Snop Oregon." 11