Born c.1722, Experience Winans, the wife of Josiah Winans, died in her "37th Year'.
Her brown sandstone stele is unusually individualistic, and may reflect a subtle attempt to depict a pretty, vivacious woman who was very much loved. The portrait soul effigy is recognizably feminine, with seemingly bright, long-lashed eyes and neat, curly hair. In addition to the hourglass, which signifies the brevity of life, hearts and stylized breasts appear in the stone's tympanum. Here the heart represents "love of God", and the breast "love of Sacred Scripture as the milk of the soul". While early colonists, familiar with the Bible's "Song of Solomon", would have understood these symbols in a spiritual context, they would also have been aware of their temporal connotations. The epitaph portion of Mrs. Winans' inscription (see below) is now hidden under ground, but appears in the 1892 book of gravestone transcriptions by William ogden Wheeler and Edmund D. Halsey.
GRAVESTONE PHOTO by Nikita Barlow, August 1991.
Her brown sandstone stele is unusually individualistic, and may reflect a subtle attempt to depict a pretty, vivacious woman who was very much loved. The portrait soul effigy is recognizably feminine, with seemingly bright, long-lashed eyes and neat, curly hair. In addition to the hourglass, which signifies the brevity of life, hearts and stylized breasts appear in the stone's tympanum. Here the heart represents "love of God", and the breast "love of Sacred Scripture as the milk of the soul". While early colonists, familiar with the Bible's "Song of Solomon", would have understood these symbols in a spiritual context, they would also have been aware of their temporal connotations. The epitaph portion of Mrs. Winans' inscription (see below) is now hidden under ground, but appears in the 1892 book of gravestone transcriptions by William ogden Wheeler and Edmund D. Halsey.
GRAVESTONE PHOTO by Nikita Barlow, August 1991.
Born c.1722, Experience Winans, the wife of Josiah Winans, died in her "37th Year'.
Her brown sandstone stele is unusually individualistic, and may reflect a subtle attempt to depict a pretty, vivacious woman who was very much loved. The portrait soul effigy is recognizably feminine, with seemingly bright, long-lashed eyes and neat, curly hair. In addition to the hourglass, which signifies the brevity of life, hearts and stylized breasts appear in the stone's tympanum. Here the heart represents "love of God", and the breast "love of Sacred Scripture as the milk of the soul". While early colonists, familiar with the Bible's "Song of Solomon", would have understood these symbols in a spiritual context, they would also have been aware of their temporal connotations. The epitaph portion of Mrs. Winans' inscription (see below) is now hidden under ground, but appears in the 1892 book of gravestone transcriptions by William ogden Wheeler and Edmund D. Halsey.
GRAVESTONE PHOTO by Nikita Barlow, August 1991.
Her brown sandstone stele is unusually individualistic, and may reflect a subtle attempt to depict a pretty, vivacious woman who was very much loved. The portrait soul effigy is recognizably feminine, with seemingly bright, long-lashed eyes and neat, curly hair. In addition to the hourglass, which signifies the brevity of life, hearts and stylized breasts appear in the stone's tympanum. Here the heart represents "love of God", and the breast "love of Sacred Scripture as the milk of the soul". While early colonists, familiar with the Bible's "Song of Solomon", would have understood these symbols in a spiritual context, they would also have been aware of their temporal connotations. The epitaph portion of Mrs. Winans' inscription (see below) is now hidden under ground, but appears in the 1892 book of gravestone transcriptions by William ogden Wheeler and Edmund D. Halsey.
GRAVESTONE PHOTO by Nikita Barlow, August 1991.
Inscription
"Here Lyes Interr'd the Corps
of Experience Winans the
Wife of Josiah Winans who
Resigned her breath May ye
23 Anno Domini 1759 in ye
37th year of her Age
All Humane Bodies yield to Deaths
Decree
The Soul survives to all Eternity"
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