On a recent trip through my old stomping grounds of Princeton, NJ, I decided to track down a gravestone I’d heard of, but never seen. So it was that I spent half an hour tromping around the 250-year-old Princeton Cemetery, hunting for the gravestone of William H. Hahn Jr. Though he lived from 1905 to 1980 and no doubt had a full life, Hahn is not really a notable man. However, thanks to a request made shortly before he perished, Hahn is now remembered alongside the likes of president Grover Cleveland, mathematician Kurt Gödel, and many others.
So what exactly makes Hahn’s grave so noteworthy? Well, I grabbed a picture1, and you can see for yourself:
Not bad, Mr. Hahn. Not bad.
Footnotes:
As you might guess from the photo, Hahn’s marker is in the ground, and is thus a bit difficult to find.
The family’s marker, shown above, is a useful landmark. ↩︎