Gravestone of the Day: Phebe Seabury

Phebe Seabury, 1715, Little Compton, RI

Here lyeth ye body

of Phebe the wife

of Ioseph Seabury

who deceast in ye 

36t year of her

aGe April ye 21t 1715

Gravestone of the Day: Emim How

Emim How, 1705, Little Compton, RI

HERE LYETH Ye BODY

OF EMIM Ye DAVGHTER

OF NICHOLAS & ELINOR

HOW, SHE LIVED 6

YEARS & DYED IVLY

Ye 18TH 1705

Emim is a new one for me. It is the name of an obscure tribe mentioned briefly in the Bible.

Here is another example of colonial Americans using a collective name from the Bible as a personal name.

Gravestone of the Day: Elizabeth Richmond

Elizabeth Richmond, 1705, Little Compton, RI

Here lyeth Eliz-

abeth ye dauGhtr of

Edwad Richmond

& of Sarah his wife

who dyed in ye 12th

year of her aGe

may ye 11th 1705

Gravestone of the Day: Jeremiah Brown

Jeremiah Brown, 1723, Newport, RI

Here lyeth ye

Body of Jeremiah

Brown who

died Octr: ye 30th.

1723 aged 30

Years & 30 dayes

Gravestone of the Day: Daniel Guild

Daniel Guild, 1795, Wrentham, MA

Here lies Deposited

The remains of Mr

DANIEL GUILD

who Died June 22d. 1795

Atatis 58 who for 40 Years

was employ'd as a Saxon in

Commiting his fellow mortals

to the silent tomb.

Oh! Stranger

Contemplate that ere long

thy dust must mix with

mine -------------

Another epitaph cut short by an unfortunate preservation effort. Most of the old stones in Wrentham's Central Cemetery are embedded in concrete strips that keep them in straight, mowable lines. Sadly, many of the epitaphs were cut off when the stones were sunk into the concrete.

I think that Daniel Guild was probably a sexton, rather than a Saxon, but who am I to nitpick? I always love finding gravestones dedicated to carvers and others who made their livings creating the graveyards in which they were buried. It's interesting to see how they were memorialized. Daniel Guild (or his family) chose a winged skull that was decidedly old-fashioned by 1795. The Fisher/Farrington shop was still producing these stones in the 1790s, but they were not the height of fashion.

Some other stones dedicated to men in the mortuary industry:


Josiah Manning, 1806, Windham Center, CT

John Stevens, 1736, Newport, RI:

Jopsephely and the Sinking Apostrophes

Here's another stone from a Connecticut River Valley carver, though I'm not sure which one. The carver owes a lot to the Stebbins Family and William Holland for the crown and scroll motif, but this stone looks rougher than the others I've seen from the Stebbins workshop or Holland. Might it be an early stone by John Ely? I don't know the western Massachusetts carvers very well, but there is an extensive website dedicated to their work for anyone who is interested in the subject.

I was most interested in the lettering on this stone. Not only does the carver misspell "Joseph" (and Mary?) and employ idosyncratic capitalization, he uses commas as apostrophes in several instances. The words "died, " "April," "daughter," and "months" are rendered "di,d" "Apr,l" "daugh,r" and "mont,s." I've never seen anything quite like it. He also seems to place a tittle over his capital is, just like John Stevens I.

Marei Ely

d. 1771

and Lovice Ely

d. 1763

Holyoke, MA

Carved in Stone

One thing about carving something in stone — it's really tough to erase mistakes.

The Wood family of Little Compton, RI suffered a tragedy in 1712: all four of their teenage children died between March 8 and March 16. There are several other gravestones in the immediate area dated January-March 1712, which indicates a major epidemic. I haven't been able to find out exactly what the epidemic was — it was unusual in its virulence among teenagers and young adults.

Two of the Wood children, Deborah (age 18) and Margeret (age 16), are buried under the same headstone. It is a lovely example of an early John Stevens I double stone with strong letters, dotted capital Is, and muffin-shaped deaths heads.

If you look closely, you can see that Stevens originally misidentified Deborah as "Elizabeth" — you can see the initial E, the I, and a faint ghost of the Z. Stevens reused the H at the end and sort of gave up on trying to erase the T.

If there was a widespread epidemic, Stevens may have been inundated with orders. Perhaps he mixed them up.