We never know for sure when our time will come and death will come calling. When will be the last time we see or talk to a friend before death arrives. Often death comes early:
Upon entering Laurel Hill Cemetery, the average visitor is immediately struck by the curious statuary that sits at its entrance. It is based upon the early 19th century novel, Old Mortality, by Sir Walter Scott, wherein the title character cautions, “My hours are like the ears of the latter harvest, and your days are yet in the spring; and yet you may be gathered into the garner of mortality before me, for the sickle of death cuts down the green as oft as the ripe, and there is a colour in your cheek that, like the bud of the rose, serveth oft to hide the worm of corruption.” These poetic words would translate into reality for many whom rest at Laurel Hill. From the youngest infants to the young men and women not destined to reach the milestone of middle age, the Cemetery is ripe with the bones of many who departed this world before their time. Alfred Miller was just 7 months old when he found eternal rest at Laurel Hill, soon to be joined by three siblings who died before their 1stbirthdays. Civil War Union Colonel Ulric Dahlgren was just 21 when a bullet ended his promising military career. William Emlen Cresson’s bronze likeness depicts an artist just 24 years old when he painted his last. Across the Cemetery, Charles Vansant’s similarly short life ended on a lazy summer day at the Jersey shore with a shark attack that would decades later inspire the film Jaws.
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