Before the weather finishes the sentence.
Brighton Ledger photographs, rubs, and transcribes the historic burying-ground stones of New England before erosion, lichen, and time make them unreadable for good. We don't restore. We record.
Six plots. Wander wherever you like — or use the paths at the top of the page.
A stone photographed in 1974 can be blank by 2020.
Slate and marble lose their surface a fraction of a millimeter at a time — invisible year to year, unmistakable across a lifetime. A stone that's fully legible today may be a smooth grey rectangle within a generation or two. Nobody is coming to record it unless someone decides to.
Three stones, recovered in part.
Square brackets mark letters we couldn't read directly and had to reconstruct — from raking light, town vital records, or both. We publish our uncertainty rather than smoothing over it.
A blank stone that started it all.
Iris Winterbourne went looking for her great-great-grandmother's grave outside Concord and found a rectangle of flaking marble where the inscription used to be. She'd seen a photograph of it once, taken decades earlier — worn, but legible. By the time she found the stone herself, there was nothing left to read.
Have a family stone you'd like recorded, or a burying ground that needs surveying before it's too late? Get in touch — most inquiries start with a photograph, not a form.