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The Norwich Ovoid Carver, particularly in the old Norwichtown burying ground, but also in Windham, Groton, Preston, and Coventry, one finds a small number of large rude semicircular stones that are among the earliest carved stones in the area. They are not just the crude initialed carving found in many inland cemeteries. These stones have obviously been shaped and the fronts smoothed. There is no attempt at designs, but the lettering is deeply and boldly cut and has remained legible for over two hundred years, often without appreciable deterioration. (Ludwig 1966, plate 45, p. 130). The Groton stones are particularly clear, but may well have been recut. There is something appealing in the elemental cleanness and strength of these early stones. They give the impression of a society determined to remember its founders forever with no nonsense about it. All existing probates have been checked out but no evidence has yet been discovered to establish the identity of this interesting pre-Hartshorne carver.
From: Slater, James A. The Colonial Burying Grounds of
Eastern Connecticut and the Men Who Made Them. Memoirs of the
Connecticut Academy of Arts & Sciences, vol. 21. Hamden,
Connecticut: Archon Books, 1987.
*Homer Babbidge Library call number f/Q/11/C85/v.21