Concord’s First Presbyterian Church has a garden contained items not normally associated with such as place: tombstones. Because of this, Memorial Garden had more to offer to visitors than fragrant flora. It offered insights into the town’s history and stories of the town’s honored dead, with tombstone dates spanning between 1804-1999.
Profiled are Calvary Episcopal Church and Churchyard, Tarboro; Old Burying Ground, Beaufort; St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Bath; Oakdale Cemetery, Wilmington. Accompanying photos of cemeteries and tombstones was information such as brief church histories and cemeteries’ unique qualities. As for their tombstones, they are utilitarian and decorative, indicating aspects such as religious affiliation; economic status; relationship to other families in the cemetery; evidence or absence of kinship to the Coastal Plain region’s earliest settlers.