Epitaph: Thou hast not done me wrong

The epitaph, still mostly legible, on the weathered gravestone of Sarah Gill (d. 1841) is a popular one. Did you know the author wrote an even more popular and enduring verse?

SARAH,
Wife of Ambrose Gill,
died March 8, 1841,
age 27 years 11 m. & 9.

Lord she was thine & not my own,
Thou hast not done me wrong;
I than[k thee] for the precious loan,
Afor[ded me] so long.

The epitaph’s author is John Newton (b. 1725, d. 1807), an Anglican clergyman. Sarah’s epitaph is the first verse of a long poem that Newton wrote upon the death of his wife in 1790.

The even more popular and enduring John Newton verse? You know it as the hymn “Amazing Grace.”

Fletcher Chapel Cemetery, Fairfield County, Ohio