'Pages of the hillside'

Above and just below, in the Old Burying Point Cemetery, Salem, Mass. It was laid out in 1637.—Photo by Max Anderson

Above and just below, in the Old Burying Point Cemetery, Salem, Mass. It was laid out in 1637.

—Photo by Max Anderson

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“The graveyards of New England can be gay or sad, humorous or severe, bleak or beautiful, but they are are always intensely interesting. The spiritual history of our first two hundred years is nowhere written down more clearly than in these slate and granite pages of the hillside, these neglected Americana of the open air.’’

— Odell Shepard, in The Harvest of a Quiet Eye.

Point of Graves Burying Ground, Portsmouth, N.H. It was laid out in the 17th Century.

Point of Graves Burying Ground, Portsmouth, N.H. It was laid out in the 17th Century.