The early graves still discernible in this old family burying-ground are marked by natural, uninscribed stones, which was the ordinary mode before gravestones came into common use in New England. In family burying-places, on farms or in out-of-the-way places, the lack of inscriptions continued to a comparatively late period. Many such old family burying-places have been long obliterated. The preservation of this one is probably due to its being secured by deed. (See New London Record, November 13, 1751.) It is said that, despite the lack of inscriptions, descendants in the earlier part of the nineteenth century could tell who was buried in each of the old graves. The railroad has cut off a portion of this burial ground, which originally extended to the verge of the river. Tradition states that some of the graves on the river bank were washed away at the time of the great September gale (1813). John Rogers, 2d, was a man of remarkable thrift and enterprise as well as of high moral and religious character.[156] His inventory is the largest of his time in New London and vicinity, and double that of many accounted rich, consisting mainly of a number of valuable farms on both sides of the Norwich road, including the enlarged Mamacock farm, the central part of which (Mamacock proper), his home farm, is shown by the inventory to be under a high state of cultivation and richly stocked with horses, cattle and sheep. His children had received liberal gifts from him in his lifetime. Footnote 156: There are numerous allusions to John Rogers, 2d, in the “Hempstead Diary,” but a number of references to “John Rogers,” which in the published Diary are credited to John, 2d, refer to his cousin, Capt. John Rogers, of Great Neck vicinity, as does the statement under October 4, 1735, that John Rogers “girdled the apple trees” on the “Crossman lot.” This “Crossman lot,” on the Great Neck, by “Lower Mamacock,” was in litigation between Capt. John Rogers and Mr. Hempstead, for some time, and was finally accorded to Mr. Hempstead. “Lower Mamacock” by “lower Alewife Cove,” is easily confounded with “Upper Mamacock,” by “upper Alewife Cove,” although they are six or seven miles apart.