At the start, a stone. Nothing more. No name, no dates of birth and death, no relations. No gender. No one will ever know whose DNA mingles with the earth beneath, who lived a life now gone to dust, how long ago.
Only a stone, leaning, broken, jagged top, lichen creeping up its slender sides. Winter after winter, frost forces it another fraction of an inch off center. One stone among many in a nearly forgotten cemetery populated by scattered, neglected stones.
This is the Quaker Burying Ground—Quakers’ preferred term—at the corner of Union Road and Brown Road in the town of Ausable. The Adirondack Park’s boundary coincides with Brown Road, scarcely more than a paved farm lane; one can stand in the Burying Ground and throw a pebble over its chipped and rusted iron fence, out of the park. Eastward lies a huge dairy farm, a relative newcomer to the scene. To the north, cornfields, apple orchards, Adirondack uplands
