Linhart Obelisk, Beulah Presbyterian Church Cemetery

The tallest monument in the cemetery, this 1880s obelisk is unusually narrow and needly. Note the cartouche a third of the way up with James B. Linhart’s elaborate monogram.

Nancy McKracking Tombstone, Beulah Presbyterian Church Cemetery

A neatly cut tombstone for a young woman who died at the age of 22; the top is damaged, but the inscription is perfect. One wonders whether “McKracking” was the true original spelling of her name, or the stonecutter’s best guess for an illiterate client.

James Horner Monument, Beulah Presbyterian Church Cemetery

Revolutionary War veteran James Horner’s descendants gave him a new granite monument in 1917; probably the old slate gravestone was already nearly illegible.

Johnston Monument, Beulah Presbyterian Church Cemetery

This monument was put up in 1878, but it remembers the whole Johnston clan, going back to the nearly indestructible Jane Johnston, who was born in 1700 (or possibly 1699) and died in 1806 at the age of 106. During that time she surely had many interesting adventures, including crossing the Alleghenies to settle in the frontier of Western Pennsylvania when she must have been already an old woman.

We should note, by the way, that when a cemetery inscription says “in the 106th year of her age,” it almost always means “at the age of 106,” not (as it should) “at the age of 105.”