Hannah: I discerned the meaning of the whip-poorwill’s cry. Legend has it I departed earthly life that night, with Peter holding me in his arms and blessing me with his tears. Since we were a young family and the first inhabitants of the land after the Indians, no one had thought to prepare a vault. This entailed a month of labor by the slaves.
Before I was laid beneath the ground, Peter opened my oak casket to bid his final farewell. As he scarcely dared hope, I was restored to my beauty of years before. Death took my spirit from my body, but just as my spirit has en-dured these past centuries, so my body remained inviolable.
My beloved Peter left the plantation after the in-ternment and made a fortune importing silk in Philadelphia. He eventually remarried and named his first daughter Hannah. The other three girls had Hannah as their middle names.
If you ever are in Narragansett Country, I invite you to visit my grave. Look for an overgrown dirt road next to pole 4831 on Boston Neck Road in what is now known as Saunderstown. About one hundred yards into the woods in a cemetery with a single stone. Here I’m listed as Hannah Robinson, died October 30, 1773. Mother died a few months later. Some say of a broken heart. She lies beside me.
The land the grave is on is for sale. The solitary stone is not in a historical cemetery, and it’s not protected by law. If the future owners see fit to move my last remains, my plea to them is to inscribe my true name on a new monument, for my name is Simons.