The Redcoat Skeleton

Episode 46

The Grim is opening the gate and entering Bennington Centre Cemetery located in Bennington Vermont. Like bones catching the last light after sundown, the white marble gravestones gleam with an otherworldly brightness. Founded in 1762 beside Vermont's Old First Church, this extraordinary burial ground transcends its purpose to become something far more profound – a cathedral of carved mortality where American history, art, and memory converge in breathtaking ways.

What separates Bennington from other historic cemeteries is the remarkable collection of funerary artistry etched into its stones. Master carvers like Zerubbabel Collins, Ebenezer Soule, and Josiah Manning left behind over 40 distinct works featuring winged skulls, soul effigies, and haunting faces that stare across centuries. These weren't mere markers but sermons in stone, created by artisans whose family dynasties spanned generations and whose chisels shaped American memorial traditions.

The cemetery breathes with revolutionary significance. Just 15 years after its founding, the Battle of Bennington saw local militias led by General John Stark defeat British forces in a pivotal moment that weakened Burgoyne's campaign and helped secure American victory at Saratoga. Today, 75 soldiers from that conflict – American, British, and Hessian – share the same quiet ground, their divisions dissolved by death's democracy.

Perhaps most poignant is the modest slab marking Robert Frost's final resting place, bearing his immortal epitaph: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world." The celebrated poet, who buried his wife and four children and whose deceptively simple verse concealed profound meditations on isolation and mortality, found his perfect resting place among these colonial dead and carved masterpieces. Nearby lies David Redding, a loyalist spy whose skeleton wandered nearly 200 years before finally receiving proper burial in 1976, a reminder that some stories refuse easy conclusions.

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