Happy febuary!

Bartholomew Hunt, 1718, Little Compton, RI

Here lyeth Mr

Bartholomew

Hunt, who Dyed

febuary ye 20th.

1717/8 in the 64th

year of his

age.

Gravestone of the Day: Anne Whipple

Anne Whipple, 1720, Newport Common Burying Ground, Newport, RI

Here lyeth Interred

the Body of Anne

the Wife of Ioseph

Whipple, who dyed

Decembr: ye: 28th:

1720: Aged about

25 years.

Custom-Made Gravestone?

Were 17th- and 18th-century gravestones custom carved or did customers purchase pre-carved blanks and pay for a custom epitaph? This is an important question for anyone who wishes to argue that the iconography of a particular stone is connected with the person buried under it.

The evidence seems to indicate that many stones were custom-made, but many (most?) were pre-carved.

It is easiest to argue that a stone was custom-made when it is of an unusual size/shape, when it displays a portrait of the deceased, or when the iconography is directly related to something mentioned in the text. If a stone is custom-made, there should also be consistency between the hand that carved the words and the iconography.

Thus, there little doubt that the Langley children stone and the Childs children stone are custom-made: they are too large, unusual, and specific to be pre-carved. Similarly, I would wager that the Jonathan Pierpont stone is a custom stone due to the minister-specific iconography and the correspondence between the letterforms and iconography. The stone for Desire Tripp's arm is definitely one-of-a-kind.

On the other end of the spectrum, it is easy to argue that a stone is probably pre-carved when its iconography is standard for a particular workshop, the text does not fit particularly well, or the hand carving the iconography seems different from the hand carving the text.

For example:

The Lee children stone (Phipps Street Cemetery, Charlestown, MA) looks like every other Lamson shop stone carved between 1730 and 1750 and the names of the children are squished into a space that is much too small. To me, this looks like a (rather large) blank that was intended for a single person, but purchased by the Lees for their children.

The Thomas Brown stone (NCBG, Newport, RI) is typical of William Stevens' early work, but the text does not fill the space allotted, suggesting that the border and tympanum carvings may have been done before the epitaph.

On the Sarah Rogers stone (NCBG, Newport, RI), there is a profound disconnect between the style of the borders and the style of the lettering, indicating that the work was divided between two carvers.

Next time: pre-shaped, but not pre-carved

Good Stone

What does high-quality slate look like after 300 years?

gravestones by John Stevens I

Little Compton, RI

Acrostic Epitaph

Another remarkable John Stevens I epitaph is this acrostic dedicated to Sarah Mitchell (1713).

Shall we lement for you our frind
And mother in Israel
Reciue her Lord into thy hand,
And then it will be well.
Honour her memory I will.

Make her to be at thy right hand.
In tryumph and true command
To the[e] o Lord her we resigne
Christ and she for to Combine
Her o Christ to you we giue
Euermore with you to liue
Lord do thou let her possess
Life and everlasting blessedness.

Sarah Mitchell, Newport, RI, 1713

carved by John Stevens I

"Happie are the Youth"

This John Stevens I stone has a verse that appears to be an original. At least, I can't find another example of the poem (or any part of it) on the internet. The awkward grammar and smug rhyme support the idea that it may have been composed for the occasion.

HERE LIETH Ye BODY

OF JANE CUTLER WHO

DEPARTED THIS LIFE

SEPTEMR Ye 26th 1720

AND Ye BODY OF WILLM

HALL WHO DIED

JUNE Ye 21 1721

Happie are the youth

That dy in ye truth

And establishes righteousness

Another interesting thing about this stone is that the two people commemorated are not obviously related. Jane Cutler and William Hall are not called siblings and they are buried in the white section of the Newport Common Burying Ground, so it is unlikely that they were spouses in an unrecognized marriage. Were they cousins? Neighbors? The verse suggests that the deceased were children, and I've seen one or two stones where young friends or cousins are buried together, but it's very unusual.

Jane Cutler and William Hall

Newport, RI, 1721

carved by John Stevens I

Adieu, Vain World

I'm always interested to learn what Americans were reading in the 17th and 18th centuries. This Stevens Shop stone in Newport displays a verse from Lady Mary Chudleigh's 1703 collection of poems, Poems on Several Occasions:

Adieu, Vain World, Vain World Adieu

I come, Ye Blest, I come to you.

This stone is dated 1728, indicating that someone in Newport was reading feminist poetry that had been published (relatively) recently. Not just reading it — embracing it enthusiastically enough to put it on a gravestone.

I wonder who decided on this verse. Was it from a poem beloved by Abigail Clarke? By her family? Did John Stevens enjoy Lady Mary Chudleigh's work? I'll be on the lookout for other examples of her work in the Newport Common Burying Ground.

Abigail Clarke, Newport, RI, 1728

Stone Turned Upside Down

Of the many intriguing gravestones currently in the possesion of the John Stevens shop, this little footstone caught my eye. The carver originally intended to letter the other end of the stone, but he broke off a piece of the corner. Instead of wasting the stone, he merely flipped it over and finished the other side. The blemished stone became ballast.

Ironically, the flawed side, which remained buried for two centuries, is in nearly pristine condition, while the new top is pretty battered.

This reminds me of the recycled stone at Copp's Hill.

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.

A Visit to the John Stevens Shop

I had a wonderful day today — I passed the afternoon at the John Stevens Shop in Newport. John and Nick Benson were extremely generous — not only did they allow me to look through the unpublished ledgers, they also took the time to walk me through the different carving styles of individual carvers and pointed out the subtleties of letterforms that I, admittedly, had a hard time picking up from Vincent Luti's book.

The ledgers are amazing. Amazing. Some of them are in rough shape, but they are packed with useful and interesting information about commerce in 18th-century Newport. In addition to the records related to gravestone production, there are gems like John Stevens III's "A Memorandum of Hogs, for my own Satesfaction," and accounts of various servants' infractions. John Stevens III actually recorded his children's birthdates (including exact time of birth and weight), marriages, and deaths in the inside cover of his shop ledger as if it were a family Bible.

I found some incredibly useful information about freedmen who commissioned stones for their family members in the 1780s and 1790s.


John also showed me several fallen stones that people have brought to the shop over the years, including two from God's Little Acre. I was especially excited to see this one, which indicates that two slaves owned by Christopher Phillips — Hagar and Lonnon — were siblings: