Silva Gardner

This gravestone might not look like much, but it is an extraordinary object for one reason: it appears in the records of the John Stevens shop under the account of its purchaser, Newport Gardner, a.k.a. Occramar Marycoo.

John Stevens' book contains an entry for September 28, 1790 under Newport Gardner's account:
"To Cutting a pair of Grave Stones for your Child Silva . . . 15 shillings"

The footstone does not survive, but Silva Gardner's headstone still stands in God's Little Acre.

Newport Gardner paid for his daughter's gravestone with ten bushels of potatoes.

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.