Just as the North Coast Indians carved totem poles, the Vikings cut runic inscriptions on massive monoliths, and the Romans, Egyptians, Chinese and Mayas decorated their tombs, so the American colonists followed a traditional pattern of commemorating their dead with stonegraven images.

Here, perhaps for the only time in the annals of early American design, the artist was free to create an object representing his feelings, beliefs and philosophy. In almost all other areas of Colonial crafts, the first consideration was utilitarian; houses, tools, utensils, and furniture were quite often beautiful, but it was in gravestone carving that the artist in that rigid society achieved truly dramatic force.

Relatively unknown to the public, these carvings by anonymous stonecutters convey an astonishing variety of pictorial images, not only reflecting attitudes of their time, but reaching beyond them in vision and originality.