Excerpt from Inscriptions on the Grave Stones: In the Grave Yards of Northampton, and of Other Towns in the Valley of the Connecticut, as Springfield, Amherst, Hadley, Hatfield, Deerfield, &C The object of the Compiler in the work he has undertaken is to preserve in a durable form some most interesting but rapidly perishing memorials of our Puritan ancestors. He has taken much pains to trace and to transcribe the inscriptions correctly. T. B. From the first settlement of Northampton in 1654, to 1661, a period of 7 years, there were 10 deaths. The place of burial was Meeting House Hill. The Town voted that after Oct. of that year no more burials should be on that spot, and the present yard was selected for that purpose. The first person buried therein was Henry Curtis, the only person who died that year; but no monument designates the place of his interment, nor that of others, for many years. Among this number was Rowland Stebbins, ancestor of all of the name now in America, who died Dec.14, 1671, aged 77, to commemorate whose death a Granite Cenotaph has been erected, which will be noticed in the Sequel of Monumental descriptions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.