The Golden Bowl was Broken: a Blount Family Cenotaph

[Originally posted at the Rose Hill Cemetery blog.]

Lots in Rose Hill Cemetery at Macon, Bibb County, Georgia began to be sold about May of 1840. According to the cemetery's records, the lot where the following stone, memorializing members of the James Blount family, was placed was purchased by Simri Rose – the developer of Rose Hill – on 28 July 1840. Unless remains were moved from another location, the stone placed is a cenotaph: "a tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of persons whose remains are elsewhere." [Merriam-Webster]

James Blount
Born 28th June 1780
Died 12th Dec 1820
Son of Col. Edmund and Judith Blount
of Washington Co, N.C.

Elizabeth Blount
Consort of James Blount
Daughter of P. S. and Nancy Roulhac
Born 4th Oct 1786
Died 17th Feb 1834

Edmund Sharpe Blount
Son of James & Elizabeth Blount
Born 10th Sept 1806
Died in 1826

Erected by John M. Blount, 1851.

Father
This marble to thy memory
the "Golden Bowl was broken"
when scarce I knew thee

Mother
for the lessons thou hast taught me

Brother
I can give thee but a tomb, it
bears thy name too soon.

Note: "the Golden Bowl was broken" references the Bible. Ecclesiastes 12:6 (KJV), to be specific – "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth..."

⁵…because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.
⁶Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
⁷Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it…

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