One thing I can rarely resist photographing in a cemetery is a grave marker with an unusual or old-fashioned name. Names have fascinated me – how some remain common, a few become obscure, and others cyclically fall in and out of favor.
The patriarch of the Edwards family bore the name Adanijah. This seems to be a variant of Adonijah, one of the names of King David’s sons in the Old Testament.
Almus Witter was a Civil War soldier. Almus is the name of a Catholic saint and a town in Turkey. It’s also the name of a European company, but that didn’t exist in 1844 when the Witter parents were naming their baby boy.
Zenas Kent lived to an old age. The name Zenas is biblical -Paul mentions a lawyer with that name in the letters to Titus.
I’m going to guess that all three of these names entered the family at some point due to their biblical origins, even if these men received them in honor of a relative.
A Grave Concern 