Gravestone of the Day: Sam

Sam, 1739, NCBG, Newport, RI

Here lieth Sa[m]

a Negro Servan[t]

to Wm: Barker,

aged aout 50

Years & died

Septmr: – 1739.

The fact that Sam's age was imprecisely known probably means that he was born in Africa or the West Indies and brought to Rhode Island by a slave trader.

Gravestone of the Day: Juber Tillinghast

Juber Tillinghast, 1773, God's Little Acre, NCBG, Newport, RI

In Memory of

JUBER TILLING-

HAST who

died May 16th

1773 Aged

about 50 Years.

Juba Tillinghast was probably brought to Newport from Africa or the West Indies as a child or young man. If he had been born in New England, his age probably would have been known.

The rendering of Juba as "Juber" is an artifact of the New England accent. See: Marther, Annar, Prissilar, etc.

Gravestone of the Day: Catharine Almy

Catharine Almy, 1743, God's Little Acre, NCBG, Newport, RI

Catharine Almy

wife of Hurrican

Dunbar died

Augst: ye 1st: 1743

Aged about

35 Years.

These stones never cease to astonish me with their concise encapsulation of the cruelties of slavery. Catharine was the wife of a man whose name she could not share. Instead, her surname was the name of the people who owned her. No one knew how old she was, which probably means that she was born in Africa and that Catharine was not the name given to her by her biological family.

See my statement on naming the enslaved here.

Gravestone of the Day: Subiner Clark

Subiner Clark, 1759, God's Little Acre, NCBG, Newport, RI

IN MEMORY of

SUBINER Daughter

of NERO CLARK

& PHILLIS his Wife

who died July

1759 in the 19th

Year of her Age.

Subiner is a name I haven't heard before and can't find in any source. Might it be a New England corruption of Sabina along the same lines as Annar and Marther?

I don't know whether Nero, Phillis, and Subiner/Sabina were free or enslaved.

Gravestone of the Day: Frankey and Judey

Frankey and Judey, 1732, NCBG, Newport, RI

Here lieth two

Negro Sarvants

to Mr Edward Baner

Frankey died Sepr:

ye 14th 1732 & Judey

died ye [22?]

Gravestone of the Day: Peter Hart & Jubaafford Greenhill-Hart

Peter Hart & Jubaafford Greenhill-Hart, 1763 & 1755, NCBG, Newport, RI

In Memory of

Peter Son of

Michael &

Jane Hart

died Novr ye

5th 176[3] in ye

[10?]th Year of

his Age

In Memory

of Jubaafford

Daughter of 

Harford Green

hill & Jane

Hart died Janr

[5th 1755]*

Peter and Jubaafford were the children of Jane Hart, a slave in Newport, Rhode Island. I don't know for sure which Newport slaveowner owned Jane and her children, but he/she was probably a member of the extensive Hart family, one of the largest and oldest Jewish merchant families in Newport.

The name that caught my eye here was Jubaafford. Google reveals no other Jubaaffords, Jubaffords, Jubaafords, or Jubafords whose records have made it to the internet. Juba is a tricky word to pin down; it is variously a term associated with African-American music, dance, and performers, a name for leftover food, and the Akan name for girls born on Mondays.

It is probably impossible to know for certain how Jubaafford Greenhill-Hart came by her name, but I will venture a tentative speculation. If her father's name was Harford, it seems possible that Jubaafford may be a compound name: Juba + Harford = Jubaafford. Venturing even further out onto the overreaching tendrils of conjecture, it is possible that Jane could have been the slaveowner-given name of an African-born woman named Juba, in much the way that Phibba was often mangled into Phoebe. Even if Jane Hart was named Jane at birth, any name containing "Juba" would be read as a link to West African cultural continuity in a city where many of the most prominent slaves (Newport Gardner/Occramar Mirycoo, Jack Mason/Salmar Nubia) were African-born. To me, Jubaafford seems like a name that is meant to do a lot of work by linking a child to West African language and culture, as well as preserving a link to a paternal name even when slavery prevented the establishment of legally-recognized families and surnames.

Thoughts? Other explanations?

*According to the Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Transcription Project, Jubaafford was born around 1749 and died in 1755.

Gravestone of the Day: Jem Howard

Jem Howard, 1771, Newport, RI

In Memory of

Jem Howard

a Twin Brother of

Quam & Son of

Philis, died July

17th, 1771 in the 

9th. Year of his Age

Gravestone of the Day: Adam

Adam, 1792, Newport, RI

ADAM Servt.

of ELIZABETH

MILLER died

Decembr. 12 1792

Aged 12 years

Gravestone of the Day: Pompey Brenton

Pompe Brenton, 1772, Newport, RI

IN MEMORY of

POMPEY

BRENTON

who died Augst.

the 5th A.D. 1772

aged about 55

Years.

Cut by J. Stevens jun.

Gravestone of the Day: Ann

Ann, 1743, Newport, RI

ANN A NEGRO CHILD

BELONGING TO Mr.

ROBERT OLIVER, &

DAUr. TO HIS NEGRO

MIMBO AGED 2 Yr

DIED JUNE 1743

Gravestone of the Day: Edward

Edward, 173[9?], Newport, RI

Here lieth Edward

Negro Servant to Mr

Henry Collins died

Febry ye 16 173[8]/[9]

in ye 21st year of

his age.

He was faithfill

and well Beloved

of his Master.

Gravestone of the Day: Cato

Cato, 1763, Newport, RI

Here lyes the Body

of CATO formerly Servt.

of Mr. JOB ALMY &

lately a Servt. to Mr.

SILAS COOK of 

this TOWN He

died MAY 13, 1763

Aged about 40 Years.

This appears to be a Boston-style stone, which is unusual for Newport.

Gravestone of the Day: Flora Coggeshall

Flora Coggeshall, 1766, Newport

IN MEMORY of

Flora Coggeshall

Wife of Mark

Tillinghast who

died Dec ye

29th 1766 in 

ye 48th Year of 

her Age.

In most cases, is very unusual for colonial-era gravestones to identify a wife and her husband by different last names. Yet, there is one graveyard in New England where it is the norm: God's Little Acre, the section of the Newport Common Burying Ground where Newport's slaves are buried.

Gravestone of the Day: Moll

Moll, 1723, Newport, RI

Here lieth Moll

ye wife of Peter

Servant to Robert

Barker, died Octo

ye 14th 1723

A note on names: I do not like to refer to slaves by their owners' last names unless the gravestones specifically call them by both first and last name. I do not know whether Moll went by "Moll Barker" in life or whether she claimed another surname. I feel that it would be inappropriate to reproduce the patriarchal fiction that incorporated slaves into their masters' families while robbing them of their own names and the names they chose for themselves through marriage. This can lead to some awkward naming patterns (see Pegge Scott-Robinson), but I think its safer to leave the surname off when the primary source is not specific.

This stone appears to have been lettered by William Stevens, but the hourglass was obviously carved by a less experienced hand. For more discussion of the Stevens shop and its carvers, see Vincent Luti's exhaustive study, Mallet and Chisel.

Gravestone of the Day: Pegge Scott-Robinson

Pegge Scott-Robinson, 1757, Newport, RI

Pegge Daught'r

Pompe Scott

& Vilot Rob

inson died

April 19th. 1757

Aged 6 Years

This is one of several stones in the Newport Common Burying Ground that I suspect may have been carved by Pompe Stevens. The lettering is similar to work by William Stevens, but un-ruled and not as confident as William Stevens' letters. It is not signed, so it will probably never be definitively attributed, but I think there is a strong case to be made on stylistic evidence. Compare the Pegge Scott-Robinson stone to the Cuffe Gibbs stone (signed by Pompe Stevens) and the Hart Dunbar stone (typical of William Stevens' work):

Cuffe Gibbs, 1768, Newport, RI

Hart Dunbar, 1762, Newport, RI

Of course, the variation may be due to the obvious difference in stone quality between gravestones carved for white and black Newporters. Still, I don't think that William Stevens would start carving crooked letters after 30 years on the job just because the stone was not perfect.

Gravestone of the Day: Mintus Brenton

Mintus Brenton, 1774, Newport Common Burying Ground, RI

In Memory of

MINTUS BREN-

TON; he departed

this Life Augst. 4th

A.D. 1774, aged

about 52 Years

Until recently, the Mintus Brenton* stone was one of the most beautiful stones in the "God's Little Acre" section of the Newport Common Burying Ground. The carver, John Stevens III, made an exquisite portrait stone with identifiably African features such as tightly-curled hair. As late as the 1970s, Ann and Dickran Tashjian featured the undamaged stone in their writings on the African-American burying ground.

I don't know what happened to the stone between 1974 and 2008, when this photograph was taken. It does not look like a typical lawnmower incident — the damage is too high and is not linear. It is possible that a tree branch may have fallen and crushed the portrait section of the stone. It is also possible that this is an example of willful, targeted vandalism against a beautiful and important American artifact.

The Farber Collection has a picture of the Mintus Brenton stone taken when it was whole:

*In Bodies Politic, John Wood Sweet calls Mintus Brenton "a professional funeral director" and says that he was an active member of the Free African Union Society. Yet, Brenton died in 1774 and the Free African Union Society was not founded until 1780. It is possible that there was another Mintus Brenton, but I have not been able to find one. It is also possible that Brenton was indeed in charge of organizing funerals before the formal incorporation of the FAUS as a burial society. It makes sense that John Stevens III would have carved a particularly lovely stone for Brenton if they were acquainted (and perhaps even friendly?) through their common work in the mortuary industry.

Pompey Brenton

Pompey Brenton, 1772

Newport Common Burying Ground

Newport, RI

carved by John Stevens III

 

 

This stone was carved right around the time when John Stevens III started carving in a "typographic" style rather than a "lyric" style (this terminology c/o John Benson at the John Stevens shop). The change was, apparently, related to the arrival of Baskerville type in Newport. According to Mr. Benson, the typeface became wildly popular and captured the attention of John Stevens III, who abandoned the letterforms of his youth in favor of the more regular, ruled letterforms of his post-1772 stones.

I'm not entirely sure I can reliably describe the differences — certainly, I cannot approach Mr. Benson's enthusiasm for the subject — but I can provide an example.

 

In the Samuel Petteface stone (1771), also carved by John Stevens III, the numeral 1 is very different from the typographic 1 on the Pompey Brenton stone. Mr. Benson also assures me that there is a greater harmony of form between the letters and iconography on the Petteface stone than on the Brenton stone, though my eye is not as discerning on this point.