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This past February Mr. Elementaryhistoryteacher and I ran off for a quick weekend in Charleston. It was rainy and cold most of the time, so we didn't get a chance to walk around very much, but we did take a turn through the visitor's center and then headed across the street to The Charleston Museum. The museum was founded in 1773 and is commonly referred to as America's first museum. While I found all of the exhibits informative and well done, one of the smaller ones simply astonished me. I love learning new things, and these types of cemetery markers were TOTALLY new to me.  Yes, that's a four poster bed headboard and for some people in the 18th century this served as their grave marker. I came home from Charleston and began digging a little deeper. I found an article from The Milwaukee Journal dated June 17, 1927 titled, "Four Poster Bed Headboard Marks Grave 189 Years". From the article: Still intact after serving 189 years [in Charleston, South Carolina]

The Age of Exploration. What do you immediately think of as you read those four words? More than likely, you would throw out some of the more famous explorer's names and where their expeditions took place. Some of you might tell me about their goals such as claiming land for the monarch who financed the expedition and how in the case of some bringing Christianity to the natives was in most cases a guise to seize lands and riches. You most certainly wouldn't be wrong, but as many expeditions to the New World continued more people arrived who weren't just fortune hunters, soldiers and religious men wanting to save souls. Sometimes the monarchs themselves would order certain people to go along,  and in the case of explorers Jean Ribault an Rene Laudonnere, the French monarch ordered an artist to go along and capture not riches or natives but capture images of the things he saw in the New World. The artist was Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues who lived between 1533 and 1588. Le Moyn