Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth-Century New England (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early ... and the University of North Carolina Press)

by Douglas L. Winiarski

The headstones in Pentucket Cemetery tell a grim story of the epidemic that ravaged Haverhill for two years beginning in the fall of 1735. Set in a single row were markers for the 4 children of James and Margaret McHard, each of whom succumbed to the disease in July 1736. The following year, James and Jemima Holgate buried 4 children in a single month. Ebenezer Buck commissioned one gravestone to memorialize the deaths of his 2 adolescent children.