Symbols & Superstitions: Reading Alexandria's Gravestones

The skull and crossbones on the Pascoe children's stone. The anchor on Commodore Newton's obelisk. Coins resting on a veteran's grave, and oyster shells scattered where no headstone stands — none of it is accidental. Symbols & Superstitions is a field guide to the two languages spoken in every historic burial ground: the carved symbolism the dead left behind, and the traditions the living still carry through the gates.

Part I, Reading the Stones, opens with the Victorian "beautification of death" movement that transformed American gravestone art, then catalogs twenty-seven symbols and their meanings — from the acorn to the winged skull — with notable examples surviving in Alexandria's historic cemeteries. Part II, Traditions of the Living, turns to the customs visitors ask about most: the coin code on military graves and what each denomination means, the Gullah oyster shell tradition and its quiet presence in the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex, the protective origins of mourning black, the Victorian language of funeral flowers, the wrought iron fence the Presbyterian Cemetery raised after an actual 1903 grave robbing, and the old wisdom about how to take your leave of the dead.

I wrote this volume for the visitor who walks a historic cemetery and senses that everything means something — because it does. These pages will teach you to read what the stonecutters carved and to recognize the traditions still unfolding on the grounds today, in Alexandria and in any historic burial ground you visit.

By David Heiby • Digital PDF edition • 19 pages • Published by Gravestone Stories, 2026