Every citizen of Kingsport feels a thrill of possessive pride in Old St.John's, for, if he be of any pretensions at all, he has an ancestor buried there, with a queer, crooked slab at his head, or else sprawling protectively over the grave, on which all the main facts of his history are recorded.

For the most part no great art or skill was lavished on those old tombstones.

The larger number are of roughly chiselled brown or gray native stone, and only in a few cases is there any attempt at ornamentation.

Some are adorned with skull and cross-bones, and this grizzly decoration is frequently coupled with a cherub's head.

Many are prostrate and in ruins.