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Over their dead bodies : Yankee epitaphs & history / Thomas C. Mann and Janet Greene ; illustrated by George Daly.

by Mann, Thomas C. (Thomas Clifford), 1890-

Brattleboro, Vt. : S. Greene Press, 1962.

Epitaphs -- New England.

103 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Acknowledgments -- Foreword -- Through 1775: Pioneer And Colonial Life: -- Introduction -- Epitaphs 1 to 41 -- 1776 to 1815: War, Reason And Revivalism: -- Introduction -- Epitaphs 42 to 106 -- 1816 to 1870: The Age Of Ferment: -- Introduction -- Epitaphs 107 to 169 -- 1871 to the Present: The Big New World: -- Introduction -- Epitaphs 170 to 215 -- Index.

When you get right down to it: where's the best place to tell your story or state what you stood for? Average old-time New Englanders and a number of modern ones believed that the logical place to say their say was on their gravestones. Their often stunning frankness has produced three centuries of highly personal comments on religion, politics, death, wars, love, marriage and social change, carved on markers in thousands of cemeteries throughout the region. Over their dead bodies is the first collection of its kind to explore this trove chronologically and to present epitaphs within the framework of their times. The result is a fresh approach to Americana whereby these crackling "last words" of everyday people gain in significance without losing their appeal. A general forward sets the mood of the book and cites the changing fashions in inscriptions from hell-fire admonitions ("--They may have lived in fear of their Lord but they did not, in the language of space-age anxiety, run scared") to today's stress on nice-mindedness and reserve ("-the age of monuments").

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