Pay Your Respects

So in the historical part of downtown Northport, if you drive down Main Avenue towards the river and park at the bend in the road, walk under the railroad tracks, and climb up the hill and over the walking track, you'll run across this thing sitting down at the bottom of the other side of the hill.

Obviously it's some kind of marker, but I have no idea what kind, and I have no idea who to ask. There are markings carved into both sides.

The front reads:

S 22

1858

May 7

TBSM

The back reads:

S

16

T

21

R

10W

1858

I don't know what to make of this. Is it some kind of marker set there when the town was founded? Does it have something to do with the nearby railroad tracks? That doesn't look like a 154 year old railroad bridge to me, but then again I don't know a damn thing about trains.

There's another possibility that crossed my mind, though. Could it be some kind of slave grave marker? I'm not sure if it was even a custom to mark the graves of enslaved men and women, but since it's dated three years before the civil war began it would fit chronologically, at least. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Who knows? But I left some flowers there anyway. Just in case. I doubt anybody else has.

How do I want to be remembered? As somebody who did something worth remembering. I'm not big on religion, so I'd want as non-religious of a funeral as possible, if any at all. Donate as many of my organs as are useful to science and burn the rest, I say. I certainly won't be needing them. 

If somebody had a cheap little plaque made, that would be nice too. Something simple, like:

Tim Sutton

He did the best he could.

That would be quite nice.