Following are some of the most unusual epitaphs by which people are now remembered on their tombstones. (Some were written by celebrities, some by the deceased and some by “friends” and “loved ones.”)
Dorothy Parker
“Excuse my dust.”
Franklin Pierce Adams
“Pardon me for not rising.”
George S. Kaufman
“I knew something like this would happen.”
Anthony Drake (Burlington, MA – c. 1800)
“Sacred to the memory of ANTHONY DRAKE
Who died for peace & quietness sake;
His wife was constantly scolding and scoffin’
So he sought for repose in a twelve-dollar coffin.”
Solomon Pease (Barre, VT – 1880)
“Under the sod and under the trees
Lies the body of Solomon Pease.
He is not here, there’s only the pod:
Pease shelled out and went to God.”
Beza. Wood (Winslow, ME – 1837)
“Here lies one Wood
Enclosed in wood
One Wood
Within another.
The outer wood
Is very good:
We cannot praise
The other.”
Rebecca Freeland (Edwalton, England – 1741)
“She drank good ale, good punch and wine
And lived to the age of 99.”
Harry “Jack” Rockwell (East Hampton, CT – 1883)
“Landsmen or sailors,
For a moment avast,
Poor Jack’s topsail
Is laid to the mast.
The worms gnaw his timbers
His vessel’s a wreck,
When the last whistle sounds
He’ll be up on deck.”
John Potter, D.D. (Canterbury, England – 1747)
“Alack and well aday!
Potter himself is turned to clay.”
? Ball (Wiltshire, England – c. 1620)
“Here I lie, My name is BALL –
I lived – I died, despised by all.
And now I cannot chew my crust,
I’m gone back to ancient dust.”
Jonathan Fiddle (New Jersey – 1868)
“Here lies the body of Jonathan Fiddle
In 1868, on the 30th day of June
He went out of tune.”
(S - Shushan, E.R. Grave Matters. New York: Ballantine Books, 1990.)