I just read in the Boston Globe a review about a fabulous new exhibit at the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth called “Journey’s End: Death and Mourning in Plymouth Colony”. The exhibit explores various death, funeral, and mourning customs in the Plymouth area throughout it’s history.
Some items of interest include:

*original 1704 will of Peregrine White, born aboard the Mayflower in 1620
*a silk needlework mourning scene of Charlotte Winsor from 1810
*the gravestone of Edward Babbit killed during King Philip’s War in 1675
*the gold mourning ring of Plymouth Governor Josiah Winslow from 1680, with a lock of his hair
*a funeral hymn for Daniel Webster, who died in Marshfield in 1852
*fragments of the wool burial cloth used to wrap the body of Myles Standish in 1656

Pilgrim Hall Museum
75 Court Street Plymouth, MA
Through April 30, 2007