Note 155 — Chapter XI · YEARS OF TRUCE.

The early graves still discernible in this old family burying-ground are marked by natural, uninscribed stones, which was the ordinary mode before gravestones came into common use in New England. In family burying-places, on farms or in out-of-the-way places, the lack of inscriptions continued to a comparatively late period. Many such old family burying-places have been long obliterated. The preservation of this one is probably due to its being secured by deed. (See New London Record, November 13, 1751.) It is said that, despite the lack of inscriptions, descendants in the earlier part of the nineteenth century could tell who was buried in each of the old graves. The railroad has cut off a portion of this burial ground, which originally extended to the verge of the river. Tradition states that some of the graves on the river bank were washed away at the time of the great September gale (1813).