Edward Crandall! ♥ This is my favorite gravestone. Not really my all-time favorite aesthetically, or the one whose carver I love most or have the greatest respect for, but it’s just one of those things. I saw it at the Nathan Hale cemetery on August 15th two years ago, on what was really my very first gravehounding session, and was just immediately drawn to it and was instantly super-fond of it. It was the only red sandstone marker in the cemetery, so it stood out amongst the granites, and it reminded me of a Jack from playing cards. I also loved the contrast between the stone and the green lichen trim.

It’s by Ezra Stebbins, who has 210 stones in Enfield, 182 in Somers, 55+ in Tolland, 45 in East Windsor, and 35 in Stafford, but only one or two in the eight other towns where his stones appear, so they seem really unique. The only cemetery I’ve been to that has lots of Stebbins is Old Tolland, so pretty much every time I’ve seen a Stebbins stone it has looked entirely different from everything else around it.

Anyway, Edward Crandall’s stone. It’s just my favorite. I don’t really have a reason, and I don’t need one, either.

(The top three pics are from 8-15-10, when I first met Edward Crandall, and the bottom one is from today. My camera battery ran out and I had to use my iPhone’s front-facing camera, so the quality’s really low, which is why you can’t largify it!)