Daily AncestorCoffin
A coffin carved on a colonial gravestone is a mortality symbol, a blunt reminder that the body ends in the grave.
Small carved coffins appear on early American stones with skulls, hourglasses, picks, spades and palls. Boston's earliest decorated stones use them as companions to the death's head.
They belong to the period when epitaphs urged readers to think about their own death. A coffin on the stone says nothing about the burial itself; it is part of the carver's stock set of mortality images.
As seen in a recordBoston area burying ground, 1680 to 1760
Coffin and hourglass in the side panels: Here lies ye Body of Mrs. Abiah Tuttlestone, wife to Mr. Joseph Tuttlestone, died June ye 2 1729
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Daily Ancestor. "Coffin." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/gravestone-symbols/coffin. Last checked 2026-10-15.