Before setting out for Plymouth Rock earlier on in the day we had a brief discussion about where the oldest gravestone in New England was. Did we have gravestones that dated back to the original Pilgrims? I mean… it’s not like they packed the boat with a gravestone for each passenger before they set sail. If they did that would have been super ominous.

“Should we bring more food?”

“No, Prudence over here still needs room for her gravestone.”

See, that just doesn’t track.

“The oldest graves would have been Native American.” My companion tries to argue.

Well yes and no… I mean yes, there were as many indigenous peoples here when the Pilgrims landed as there are people all together now. But the natives weren’t into marking their graves with anything. From what I gather most of them in the area merely brought their dead to sacred spaces and allowed them to be eaten by the animals they worshipped in life. A way more beautiful and nature friendly good-bye if you ask me but what do I know.

But back to the pilgrims… what were they doing with all their dead?! According to Google the oldest gravestone in New England goes to one of the original Pilgrims Myles Standish who died in 1656 and is buried in Duxbury in what is claiming to be also the oldest cemetery in the US. However now that we were on Burial Hill in Plymouth a lot of the plaques were claiming they had the oldest grave markers. The oldest still standing was of Edward Gray who died in 1681. And here’s where the nit picking begins because even though the gravestones were originally made with wood and have long since decayed several of the plots here potentially predate old Myles there. Do I smell a pointless small-town feud??

All quibbling aside the cemetery was indeed on a very steep hill which was… fun… to climb. And there was a pretty nice view up there which makes sense because before it was a cemetery it was the site of our first fort. I guess it didn’t take that long to piss off our neighbors and we went from, “Can we borrow some food so we don’t die?” (probably mimed as we didn’t have any way to speak to these people) to “Oh, by the way, since you’re all heathen savages and all have you ever heard about the one and only true God?” in what, fifteen minutes? Something like that. Yeah, I’d build some thick goddamn walls too.

ANYWAY. Back to the present. Many of the original stones have been re-backed and preserved with startling efficiency. There’s also a number of monuments and plaques and the most beautiful carvings of death heads, skulls, and cherub heads. Some were VERY unusual. And I took ALL KINDS of photos… but my camera lens decided to crap out so none of them are even remotely sharable except for a handful I took with my cell phone. I apologize for that but here they are.