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.

Butler Arch

This unusual stone is in the Little Compton burying ground in Rhode Island. I've read about gravestones in North Carolina that have cut-out pieces, but I've never seen anything else quite like this in New England.

Good Stone

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

gravestones by John Stevens I

Little Compton, RI

William Pabodie

William Pabodie, husband of Elizabeth Alden Pabodie
Little Compton, RI, 1707

I've posted this before, but I finally have my own pictures!

Regrets

One of the most tragic (and most intriguing) gravestones in Little Compton, RI belongs to a woman named Elizabeth Mortimer who died in 1776. Her epitaph hints at a frustrated love affair that Elizabeth (or whoever erected the stone) regretted for many years:

In Memory of

ELIZABETH who

Should have been the

Wife of Mr.

SIMEON PALMER

who died Augst. 14th

1776 in the 64th Year

of her Age.

To make matters worse, Elizabeth's gravestone stands next to a stone dedicated to Lidia Palmer (d.1754), who was the wife of Simeon Palmer. Simeon may be buried nearby, but his grave is not marked.

The strange thing is that some sources indicate that Elizabeth Mortimer actually did marry Simeon Palmer. The bicentennial history of Little Compton's First Congregational Church says that Elizabeth and Simeon were married on September 5, 1755.

So what on earth is that epitaph supposed to mean? Even if Elizabeth and Simeon were in love/engaged before he married Lidia, why would it still matter in 1776, after Elizabeth and Simeon had been married for over 20 years? It seems a strange grudge to hold. Perhaps Simeon, who outlived both his wives, was responsible for the epitaph and used the opportunity to apologize to Elizabeth for wronging her.

The whole thing is very strange. Among other things that raise red flags, Elizabeth Mortimer was 11 years older than Simeon Palmer, which certainly isn't outside of the realm of possibility, but would be unusual. Since Simeon married Lidia in 1744, when he was 21 years old, it would mean that any preexisting relationship between Simeon and Elizabeth would be between a very young man and a woman in her 30s. Again, not impossible, but strange for 18th-century New England.

It's just one of those cases where I really wish I could have a 5-minute interview with those involved, just to find out what the heck was going on.

Benjamin Church

I'm finally back from my internetless vacation in Rhode Island — it looks like the autopost mechanism worked just fine.

Some friends and I rented a house in Little Compton, RI and had a lovely week. While there, I visited the Little Compton graveyard, which is in the very center of an adorable little village. If I hadn't spent the last few weeks reading about King Philip's War, I would have been lulled into thinking that this was the most peaceful spot in southern New England.

One of the most prominent graves in the cemetery belongs to Benjamin Church, the military leader whose company eventually killed and beheaded Metacom in 1676. His whole family has expensive tombstones rather than upright headstones — even his very young children.

"When God ye Fatal Dart He Sends"

When I plug Mary Brown's epitaph into Google, the only hits are references to her gravestone in Providence's North Burial Ground. That doesn't necessarily mean that this is an original verse, composed especially for Mary Brown, but it may be. It's certainly clumsy enough.

Here lies Inter'd ye

Body of Mary Brown

Widow & Relict of James

Brown, Decd. August ye 18th

1736. in ye 66th Year of her Age

Old Age being come her race here ends

When God ye fatal Dart he sends.

I always thought that "widow" and "relict" were synonyms, but apparently, you can be both a widow and a relict at the same time.

Also, isn't it usually Death who sends the dart, not God?

Marther Stone

It's been a while since I posted a gravestone. The snow is mostly gone, but it's still very cold and icy, so I haven't been able to go on graveyard field trips. 

When going through some photos from last fall, I noticed this one from the North Burial Ground in Providence:

I took this picture because I was looking for examples of that strange plant-like shape — I didn't even notice the spelling of "Martha" as "Marther."

 We've seen this spelling variation before with Annar Lawrence and Alletherr Grosvenor.

Love it.

Atlantic History

It strikes me that this particular gravestone is a microcosm of Atlantic history: Puritan iconography dedicated to the memory of a black slave owned by a Portuguese Jew who made his fortune selling spermaceti and whale oil in the West Indies. Add in the language of economic and emotional loss, the artisan workshop tradition, and fact that Peter died by drowning in the Atlantic (ok, technically Newport Harbor), and it starts looking like an ideal object for introducing a larger work on the material culture of death in the Atlantic world. Like, perhaps, my dissertation?

Candles and Mysteries

In the Boston area, most mid-18thc stones share basic design elements. There will be a death's head or sould effigy on the tympanum, accompanied by floral or other organic-y borders and a roundish finial design.

Things are different in Rhode Island.

There's a much wider variation, especially in tympanum designs. While most soul effigies and death's heads in Boston are variations of a carver's signature design, lots of stones in Rhode Island have images that are either unique to indivdual stones or very rare.

One such stone is the Thomas Westcot stone (1745) in Providence:

Both the shape and the central image are distinctive. At first, I thought it was a bed, but now I think it is a table with a candle and candle snuffer.

Anyone have a better reading?

The Kathrin Hawkings stone (1749) has a similar, but not identical design.

I suppose that could be a candle, but what is the circle? A mirror, perhaps? Why the forked handle/foot? Is it just another type of candle snuffer?

I'm stumped.

Depated Update

+1 to the list of "depated" stones.

Martha Brown (d. 1769) is buried in Providence's North Burial Ground.

Tingley Columns

When I think of columns on gravestones, I generally associate them with the post-Revolutionary War move toward neoclassical motifs. Imagine my surprise at finding so many "neoclassical" columns on Newport gravestones dating from the 1720s and 1730s! I can't be 100% certain, but these stones do not look like they were backdated, at least not by more than a few years. Perhaps there is something to be said here about carvers who were working from European pattern books or who had originally done some architectural work.

James Green, Newport, RI, 1723

precise columns with right angles

 

Sarah Mitchell, Newport, RI, 1718

columns with floral embellishments

Patienc Osband, Newport, RI, 1723

columns with lilies

Hannah Fitzhugh, Newport, RI, 1721/2

ruled columns, organic fronds, curvy hourglass

All four of these stones appear to be the work of a single carver, possibly one of the Tingleys (see Forbes). I've been calling him the lion head carver because some of his distinctive soul effigies remind me of lions:

Samuel Tingley and his descendants (many of whom are also named Samuel) were from the Attleborough/Providence area, not from Newport, and few of their stones appear in Newport after 1730 or so. The chronology I've been able to cobble together goes something like this:

Before 1700, Newport was part of the Boston gravestone market. Most of the handful of stones in the Common burying ground from the 17th century are Boston-area slates:

There are a handful of stones from the 1650s and 1660s that are unlike anything I've ever seen in New England. There are only a few of these and I'm not entirely sure they weren't imported from England:

In 1705, John Stevens I started producing gravestones. They were of dubious aesthetic quality, particularly for people who were used to Boston standards:

This is where the Tingleys come in. I'm speculating here, but it seems that people wanted something of higher quality than the early Stevens stones and found the Tingleys more acceptable. I do not know why they stopped buying stones from Boston.

By the late 1720s, there was a new carver in town: John Stevens II. His work was much more refined than his father's and (I suspect) convinced customers that there was no need to go to Providence when they could get quality stones in Newport:

This is a curious reversal — I'm used to thinking of Providence as the backwater and Newport as the cosmopolitan port city. That would prove true later in the 18th century (in gravestone quality, at least) as John Stevens II matured and fostered the artistry of John Stevens III and John Bull.

Variation on a Willow

This isn't a substantive post — I just wanted to highlight the William Stall stone (1808) in Newport, RI, which features a particularly lovely version of the willow design (sans urn).

Old Style, New Style

Back in July, I asked, "What's the latest date you've ever seen written with OS/NS notation?" Today, the surprising answer is 1817.

Jeremiah Brown of Providence, RI was born in 1746, before the official switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. Still, it seems bizarre to draw attention to that fact in 1817, especially since Brown was born in December, so it doesn't matter if it's old style or new style — it would be 1746 either way.

Just another data point in the case for proving that Rhode Island is a strange and wonderful place.

Desire Tripp's Amputated Arm

I know I've posted this one before, but I was piggybacking off of Prof. Emlen's photos. Now that I have my own, it's time for a repeat.

I won't say that this is the strangest gravestone in New England because the weirdness of New England is endlessly baffling. Nevertheless, I'm willing to give it top-10 status.

In Which I Am a Slacker

Yes, I have to read Eugene Genovese's Roll Jordan Roll and read/review Elizabeth Fox-Genovese's Within the Plantation Household before tomorrow night. And yes, both of those books could stop a bullet. But who could stay inside on a day like today?

Pete needed a ride to Providence, so I packed my camera and the Genoveses' greatest hits and spent the morning in the North Burial Ground.

The little girl buried under this beautiful monument is named "Minnie Maria," which is an adorable name.

I'll post more good Rhode Island names and epitaphs in the coming days.

Freelove Angell

In keeping with the theme of sprightly New England names that bring a smile to my face, I present,

Freelove Angell

of Providence, RI. Freelove was the wife of Capt. Enoch Angell, and the daughter of Peter and Freelove Randal. She is buried in the North Burial Ground in Providence.

Photo by Lucy Ross.

African-American Gravestones of Rhode Island

I love gravestones. I know lots of people do, but it was really gravestones that got me into this whole colonial America/material culture thing.

I grew up in eastern Connecticut, where colonial-era graveyards are a staple of the landscape, and I spent many hours wandering around in them. My mother participated in a project to document all of the graves of Civil War soldiers in our area, and my brothers and I would often spend weekend afternoons searching local churchyards for soldiers and men who were the right age for service. I always found the older stones particularly fascinating. Just writing this makes me want to put aside my paper prospectus, grab my camera, and head out to the nearest boneyard for a joyful afternoon.

Since I cannot justify that at the moment (damn you, homework!), I'll post some photos from Rhode Island. These are from the African-American sections of Newport's Common Burying Ground (Bull), Providence's North Burial Ground (Borden), and a cemetery in Bristol, RI (Burt).

Newport's merchants were rich enough to erect expensive gravestones for their slaves (you'll see the same thing in Marblehead), so the Newport Burying Ground is one of the best places to see funeral art commemorating 18th-century slaves. If you get a chance to visit, the African-American section is at the bottom of the hill near the corner of Van Zandt Ave and the appropriately named Farewell St.

The most interesting of these three stones is Patience Borden's. One can imagine that Borden may have written the epitaph herself, making sure that her identities as a free person, a Christian, and a wealthy, benevolent woman would be remembered by the community. If you are in Providence, you can find Patience Borden's monument (along with those of a few dozen other free and enslaved African-Americans) in the North Burial Ground about 100 ft to the west of the Stephen Hopkins monument.

Photo credits to Robert Emlen, who taught me the value of a well-composed slide.