Gravestone of the Day: Charles Whitney

Charles Whitney, 1831, Castine, ME

In memory of

CHARLES WHITNEY,

son of

Henry & Lucy Whitney,

who perished by the 

upsetting of a Boat

Oct. 1, 1831,

Aged 14 years.

Is this a new way to say died? Is it substantially different from "perished in a storm" or "drowned"?

Gravestone of the Day: Sarah Dyer

Sarah Dyer, 1852, Castine, ME

SARAH DYER

wife of

Elisha Dyer,

Born August 10, 1775,

Died Aug. 1, 1852;

ages 77 years.

The butterfly emerging from the chrysalis represents the metamorphosis of the soul. I have seen this motif before — there is an example from 1831 at Mount Auburn and from 1798 at the Central Burying Ground in Boston.

The Mount Auburn butterfly looks a little careworn in comparison to the Castine butterfly. I don't know if it's a matter of the quality of the marble or of the elements, but this carving is remarkably sharp and detailed. The veins of the leaves and the intricate designs on the butterfly's wings are barely worn at all.

Gravestone of the Day: Thomas Fields

Thomas Fields, Jr., 1790, Castine, ME

 In Memory of

THOMAS FIELDS Junr.

son of THOMAS &

LUCY FIELDS

who was drowned

before his Fathers door

July 21st 1790

Aged 2 Years & 3 Days

Gravestone of the Day: Charles Stewart

Charles Stewart, 1783/1849, Castine, ME

In Memory of

CHARLES STEWART,

the earliest Occupant

of this Mansion of the 

Dead, a Native of Scotland,

& 1st Lieut. Comm. of his

B.M. 74th Regt. of foot,

or Argyle Highlanders,

who died in this Town, while

it was in possession

of the Enemy,

March A.D. 1783,

and was interred beneath 

this Stone, AEt. about 40 y's.

Charles Stewart, a British officer, is buried in Castine, Maine. In 1779, he was part of the British garrison that helped fight off the infamous Penobscot Expedition — not that it needed much fighting off. The leaders of the expedition — Commodore Dudley Saltonstall and Paul Revere — waged such an ineffective campaign to drive the British out of Maine that Saltonstall had to stand trial before a court-martial and Revere was dismissed from military service. The Americans more or less sailed to Castine, made a few feeble attempts at a ground assault, and then waited around in the harbor until the British navy arrived in such force that they were forced to scuttle their own ships and walk back to Boston.

Despite the fact that Charles Stewart was on the winning side of one of America's worst naval defeats, someone in Castine has chosen to honor him by placing an American flag at his gravesite. I do not know why. I am also slightly skeptical that Stewart was actually the first person buried in this particular graveyard, seeing as I found a marker bearing the date 1782 not 20 yards away:

Queen Mary 2 in Bar Harbor

Last Sunday, we looked out our hotel window in Bar Harbor and saw a giant ship. Really, it was about the size of the whole town. A little research (and a good zoom) revealed that it was the Queen Mary 2, one of the largest passenger ships in the world. It looked like an island.

Don't Light a Torch on Michael Wigglesworth's Grave

Today's Maine Sunday Telegram features a story about Walter Skold, founder of the Dead Poets Society of America. Skold visits the graves of American poets, documenting them and occasionally leaving poems and trinkets.

My favorite part of the article was this anecdote from Skold's visit to Michael Wigglesworth's grave in Malden:

Visiting a graveyard at night can be a dicey proposition and requires special permission. Skold learned that lesson the hard way last year on Halloween when he was nearly arrested in Malden, Mass., where he and his son lit torches at the tomb of the Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, Puritan author of the "Day of Doom."
"Little did I know that there was a little woman who watches over the cemetery and she told the police that there were people performing satanic rituals," he said.

Acadia National Park

In celebration of my birthday, Pete and I are spending the weekend in Acadia National Park. This is the one weekend in the year during which I cannot go gravestoning without getting suspicious looks and visits from groundskeepers/police/passersby, so we are spending some time in the woods instead. The weather is lovely and the trees are only slightly past their peak.

Lois Cook Bartlett, Matriarch

I haven't been able to track down any information on Lois Cook Bartlett of Brunswick, ME, but I was enchanted by her headstone.

LOIS COOK BARTLETT

1768-1857

Mother of

Clarissa Bartlett Spear

& Grandmother of

Elizabeth G. Spear Wing

& Great-Grandmother of

Louise E. Wing Varney

& Great-great-Grandmother

of

Luigino E. Varni Gardinier

"Arise Daughter and go to thy Daughter

for thy Daughter's Daughter has a Son."

An inscription on the gray stone underneath the marble notes that five generations of descendants attended Lois' burial.

Does anyone recognize that daughter's daughter quotation? I poked around on the internet and found a few similar quotations in New England captivity narratives, but I'm not sure of the source. It sounds scriptural, but, as far as I can discover, it isn't.

This stone is a late example of the practice of noting the extent of an elderly person's posterity on his/her gravestone. While not tremendously common, these stones crop up all over New England.

Daniel Tyler

d. 1802

Brooklyn, CT

A friend of mine who recently traveled to Utah for a grandmother's 90th birthday party assures me that modern Mormon gravestones often list the deceased person's children (you see this in New England sometimes, too). I don't know if that's a long-standing tradition that goes back to the Mormons' genealogical links to colonial New England or if it is a new trend.