One of the most famous examples connected to MetroWest is the “Polly Coombes” gravestone in North Bellingham Cemetery, a burial ground that dates back to before Bellingham’s incorporation in 1719. In 1968, artists Ann Parker and Avon Neal created a stone rubbing of Polly Coombes’ uniquely carved gravestone, helping make it internationally recognized through exhibitions, portfolios, and museum collections around the world.

Using paper and chalk placed carefully over gravestones, Parker and Neal captured the intricate carvings and inscriptions of 17th and 18th century New England markers before weather and time could erase them forever. Their work preserved not only remarkable examples of early American folk art, but also the stories, beliefs, and lives of the people buried beneath them.

Many Puritan gravestones featured haunting imagery—winged skulls, skeletons, hourglasses, and angels trumpeting the Last Judgment—reflecting colonial New England’s deep focus on mortality and eternity. Through these rubbings, Parker and Neal preserved details that continue to teach us about early American craftsmanship, religion, language, and culture centuries later.

Today, the Polly Coombes gravestone remains one of North Bellingham Cemetery’s most notable landmarks, connecting local history to a larger story of preservation, memory, and early American art.

📷: Polly Coombes, Bellingham Massachusetts, 1795

📷: Polly Coombes Gravestone at Oak Hill Cemetery

📷: Captain Moses Porter and his wife Elizabeth, Hadley, 
Massachusetts, 1755, 1798

📷: Rebecca Park and her 14 infants, Grafton, Vermont, 1803

📷: Mercy Buliod, Newport, Rhode Island, 1771

Source: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14fqAWWDHXy/

Gravestone rubbings