General Washburn's Gravestone: The Story Behind the Stone

By Jennie Shurtleff

There’s something about the approach of Halloween and the sudden appearance of “RIP” tombstones on front lawns that draws one’s attention to real cemeteries. For me, cemeteries are solemn places, but they are also filled with beauty and intrigue, thanks to the artistry of their carvings and the poignancy of their epitaphs.

Since Woodstock was not chartered until 1761, its earliest surviving gravestones date from the late 1700s and early 1800s. By this time, the “death’s head” motif—a skull, sometimes winged—that had dominated colonial cemeteries in the 1600s and early 1700s had fallen out of favor. As religious views became more liberal, those grim emblems evolved into cherubs. Instead of reminding the living to fear judgment through the stark “memento mori” (“remember death”) symbolism, the cherubs were intended to offer comfort, portraying death as a passage to eternal peace.

Tombstone from Boston, Massachusetts. Photo courtesy of Ceoil, 21 February 2020 (UTC), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Cherub on a tombstone in Salem, Massachusetts, 1777. Photo courtesy of Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Although Woodstock’s cemeteries do not have death heads, nor do they abound with cherubs, they do contain some remarkable markers. One notable example is the monument to Peter Thatcher Washburn in the River Street Cemetery. Washburn, born in Massachusetts and later a resident of Woodstock, was appointed Vermont’s Adjutant and Inspector General in 1861. In that role, he bore the immense responsibility of recruiting, equipping, and tracking the state’s soldiers, including managing their medical care both on the battlefield and back home. Known for his meticulous record keeping, he and his staff filled 300 volumes with accounts of the 34,234 Vermonters who served in the Civil War. Remarkably, at the war’s end, only 75 remained unaccounted for.

Adjutant General Peter Thatcher Washburn

The Washburn House at 4 Mountain Avenue in Woodstock.

After the war, Washburn was elected as Vermont’s 33rd governor. He approached this role with the same energy and devotion that had defined his military service. Sadly, his relentless pace took its toll. On February 7, 1870, at his home, Washburn died suddenly at the age of fifty-two. With no obvious medical cause, doctors attributed his death to “nervous prostration”—essentially a collapse brought on by exhaustion and overwork.

Death Certificate for Peter T. Washburn.

Washburn’s gravestone is carved as an incomplete column, a fitting symbol for a life cut short. It stands as both a personal memorial and a reminder of how gravestone art often speaks as eloquently as words about the lives and deaths of those it commemorates.

Peter Thatcher Washburn’s monument in River Street Cemetery.