Gilson Road Cemetery, NH – Odd Hole in Gravestone

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This is an odd gravestone. It’s unique because I can’t find a reasonable explanation for it.

Walter Gilson's headstone.
Walter Gilson’s headstone.

Gilson Road Cemetery in Nashua, New Hampshire is eerie enough. However, this early 19th-century headstone has a hole in it. The marker is very old slate and the hole is like something drilled, not a bullet hole.

Does anyone know what this might be?

The headstone says:

Walter Gilson
son of Mr. Joseph & Mrs. Lucy Gilson
died August 28th, 1811
age 5 yrs 8 mos 25 days

The stone is old and dry. There are no cracks radiating from the opening to suggest that anything impacted it. The back of the stone is not fragmented in chunks as it would be from a bullet. No other headstones or signs in the area have been shot.

Here is a b&w photo showing the opening in the stone:

Walter Gilson's headstone

And here is a close-up of the opening:

Close-up of Walter Gilson's stone

That’s lichen on the inside edge of the opening, not highlights.

The surface is quite smooth, especially considering that the stone is rugged and ancient slate.

People who’ve examined this headstone on site, believe that the hole was probably drilled. But why…?

The lettering doesn’t go around the hole, so the damage occurred after the stone was carved.

And, the stone is in the middle of the cemetery, so — even if we could explain this as a careless shot by a vandal — the stone is too far from the road for that to make sense.

It’s very odd.

This cemetery more than earns its creepy reputation.

3 thoughts on “Gilson Road Cemetery, NH – Odd Hole in Gravestone”

  1. [Comment edited. Link was: sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/419934_3974938770211_1292421908_n.jpg] …. NOTE CHILD TAKING THE BALL ?!?!

    1. Mike,

      I’m sorry to spoil the fun, but photos like that are all over the Internet, and date back to Victorian times.

      In the late Victorian era, those were double exposures. Today, it’s usually PhotoShop or Paint.net or GIMP.

      Of course, it’s a fun photo — and, in case that later turns into a goatse photo (do those still exist?) or toxix link — I’m making it text so someone would have to cut-and-paste to see it.

      Cheerfully,
      Fiona

  2. Headstones used to be very expensive and so people often used stone roofing shingles,potentially that could be the reason for the hole.

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