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.

"Old Stil"

I've written Old Style/New Style dating before, but I've never seen a stone like the Josiah Gates stone (1757) in Stow, MA. The epitaph reads,

Here Lies Buried 

The Body of Josiah 

Gates Son of Mr John 

Gates & Mrs Mary Gates

Was Born March ye 24 

1739 Old Stil & Died

March ye 30 1757

New Stile

I imagine that the carver (I think one of the Worsters — still waiting for that Forbes book in the mail) felt the need to specify OS/NS because the change had taken place relatively recently. It's a little unusual for a mid-18th c. stone to specify a birth date (they usually just have the person's age), so perhaps the carver wanted to make sure that viewers would not be confused. This specificity may have been particularly important because the Josiah Gates was born and died in March, the month with the most muddled date conversions.

This stone inspired a question: how do other carvers handle Old Style/New Style conversions in the 1750s? What's the latest date you've ever seen written with OS/NS notation (i.e. 1737/8).