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Some of the old New England graveyards are serene little pockets of neglect. Their slate tombstones lean at odd angles and the elegant calligraphy is barely legible, spelling out obscure colonial names like Ozias and Zebulon. Some of the inscriptions that can still be deciphered tell poignant stories of sons and husbands fallen in long-ago wars and young wives lost in childbirth.

Clusters of brick-sized stones mark the deaths of children in some catastrophic winter. The engraved cries of lament—“Farewell, Beloved Daughter”—evoke a tug of grief even now, though the people named have been dust and earth for two hundred years or more.

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