Cyrus M. Buck Gravestone

Comment by Franz Martin on December 5, 2010 at 8:55pm

His stone carries an unusual epitaph -- "God is nature; Bible a humbug written by wicked, vulgar priests. Death was a debt I owed. I have paid that debt, so must you. To do good was my religion."

Comment by Chris Dunham on July 15, 2011 at 6:18pm

An article about the epitaph appeared in the Lewiston Evening Journal of 18 Dec. 1935:

One mistake in the article: His wife was the granddaughter of Rev. Edward M. Whittle, not the daughter.

Comment by Pamela Carter on July 19, 2011 at 9:20am

Chris, 

Can you fill me in on the lineage here? Rev. Edward Millwood Whittle is my 4th great-grandfather. His daughter Martha married Moses Yates. I don't know any of the other children of Edward Whittle and Elizabeth Higgins. I have Edward Whittle born in Charleston, South Carolina (one of a handful of my relatives born outside of New England). I know no other information on his ancestry or his children. This is a very interesting article. Although, not in my direct line, I'd like to add it to my collection of interesting ancestors. 

Comment by Chris Dunham on July 19, 2011 at 2:23pm

Here's what Edgar A. P. Yates' The Yates Book (1906), pp. 28-29, has to say about Rev. Whittle (click to enlarge):

Both Edward M. Whittle and William Yates were Methodist ministers in Greenwood. Rev. Yates was known as a quiet, deliberative preacher while Whittle was one of the "shouting Methodists."

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