In memory ov
John Smith, who met
wierlent death neer this spot
18 hundred and 40 too. He was shot
by his own pistill;
It was not one of the new kind,
but a old fashioned
brass barrel, and of such is the
Kingdom of heaven.

— Headboard, Sparta Diggings, Calif., cited in Walter Henry Howe, Here Lies, 1900