Stonington, CT

Photographs from March 7, 2008 4:30 p.m.

A rainstorm was just brewing off the little seaside borough of Stonington, Ct. when the photographs below were taken.  This cemetery at the corner of routes 1 and 1A holds so many fine examples of the High Victorian monument makers’ art. The sixty photographs in this presentation were taken in just the first few rows of the cemetery. There are many fine Gothic Revival outbuildings and mausolea as well as superb stone walls, cast iron grillwork, and examples of the celebrated Westerly blue granite, a town just a few miles north of Stonington Borough. The cemetery contains the monuments to men of the sea, founding families of the area, and those of wealth and position who owned impressive summer homes on the shoreline.  There are many mature plantings including beech, oak, maples, scrub cedar, and yucca plantings.  A newer section can be found in the north end which also contains many remarkable monuments.  This is a magical place at early light or twilight, with some of the figural statues, life-sized and covered with moss and lichen, beckoning a greeting.  It is a photographer’s Paradise.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow

I am the sunlight and ripened grain
I am the gentle Autumn rain

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep
When you awake in the morning hush
I am the swift upflinging rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight
I am the soft stars that shine at night

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep