Carved into a gray Vermont granite gravestone in the Hope Cemetery at Barre is a design consisting of three symbols—hands clasping a heart surmounted by a crown.  This design is a traditional ring design, known as a Claddagh ring.  Each of the symbols found in the ring has a special meaning long associated with the Irish village of its creation, Claddagh, a small fishing town just located outside the walled city of Galway on the West seaside of Ireland.

The ring was first created over three-hundred years ago.  The heart represents love, as one might expect, the hands, friendship, and the crown symbolizes loyalty.  This a type of faith ring that was to represent an oath or promise often as an engagement or wedding ring but are also used as gifts from Mother to daughter.

The exact origins of the ring are not certain, though, most historians trace the design back to several makers of the ring in Claddagh in the mid to late 1600s.