"The Letter'd Stone Shall Tell"

Boston Evening-Post, 12 March 1770 via Archive of Americana

Today is the 241st anniversary of the Boston Massacre. In honor of the day, I present the following poem, printed in the Boston Evening-Post a week after the event:

With Fire enwrapt, surcharg'd with Death,
Lo, the pois'd Tube convolves it's fatal Breath!
The flying Ball with heav'n-directed Force,
Rids the free Spirit of it's fallen Corse.
Well fated Shades! let no unmanly Tear
From Pit'y Eye, distain your honour'd Bier:
Lost to their view, surviving Friends may mourn,
Yet o'er thy Pile shall Flames celestial burn;
Long as in Freedom's Cause the Wise contend,
Dear to your Country shall your Fame extend;
While to the World, the letter'd Stone shall tell,
How Caldwell, Attucks, Gray, and Mav'rick fell.

A few notes on this poem:

• Though unsigned in this form, this poem is generally attributed to Phillis Wheatley.
• I have seen the poem reprinted many times, but somehow, nobody bothered to mention the little soul effigy border! The gravestone imagery used in this little woodcut really strengthens the "letter'd Stone" reference.
• Did the Boston Massacre victims have a gravestone before the current marker (1906)? The Boston cemetery commission had no knowledge of an earlier stone when they published this pamphlet in 1902, and this book from 1853 says the same thing: if there ever was a stone, it was destroyed during the siege winter of 1775-6. Does anyone know of a reference to a gravestone for the Massacre victims from 1770-1775?
• Let's go back to those little soul effigies in the border for a moment. The Boston Evening-Post was established in 1735 by Thomas Fleet. In 1770, it was published by his son, Thomas Fleet, Jr. The Fleets owned at least three slaves: Peter Fleet (d. circa 1758), Pompey and Caesar Fleet (Peter's sons, still alive in 1770). We know for sure that Peter Fleet made woodcuts — there is a book from the 1730s called The Prodigal Daughter that is illustrated with his signed woodcuts. We also know that Pompey and Caesar were trained as printers and worked in the Fleets' printing business before the war (I'm not sure about Caesar, but Pompey escaped to Nova Scotia and spent the rest of his life in Sierra Leone). Could Pompey or Caesar have carved this border? Is it possible that this is a poem by a black poet, illustrated by a black engraver, eulogizing, among others, a black/Indian sailor?
• I feel a sense of calm knowing that people were messing up its and it's in the 18th century. It's the same calm I feel knowing that 18th-century Americans had ridiculous names like Belcher Noyes and Cotton Tufts. The world is not going to hell in a handbasket, or, at least, it is not a recent development.

Gravestone of the Day: Elizabeth Reed

Elizabeth Reed, 1803, Phipps Street, Charlestown, MA

 Sacred to the Memory

of Elizabeth Reed

Daut of Mr JOSEPH

& Miss ELIZABETH REED

died Septr 1st 1803

I love this tree. These carvings are usually so rigid, but this one has a sense of movement. It truly looks like the tree is mourning. The Farber Collection attributes a similar stone dedicated to another Reed daughter to the Lamson shop, though it does not differentiate between the work of Joseph, Caleb, and David Lamson.  Other carvings may be more precise, but this one is special.

Scalia on Grave Markers

It's not every day that a Supreme Court Justice comments on grave markers. Today, Justice Scalia held forth on the subject and, once again, demonstrated the The History of the United States According to Antonin Scalia is made-up bullshit.

In the course of arguing that a giant cross erected in the Mojave Desert in 1934 cannot be regarded as a specifically Christian symbol, Scalia told the court that, "The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of the dead."

Actually, that's not all he said:

JUSTICE SCALIA: It's erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. It's the -- the cross is the -- is the most common symbol of -- of -- of the resting place of the dead, and it doesn't seem to me -- what would you have them erect? A cross -- some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Moslem half moon and star?

I'm no legal scholar, but I know a thing or two about gravestones. And Scalia is talking out of his ass on this one.

Observations

Tutor Hopkins: Today, we will practice using material objects as historical sources. When you are approaching an object, the first thing you should do is take some time to look at it carefully. Try to rid your mind of preconceptions and just make concrete observations about the object. Anything goes — just tell everyone what you see.

Undergrad #1: It's made of stone.

Tutor Hopkins: Ok, good. Does anyone know what kind of stone?

Undergrad #2: Slate?

Tutor Hopkins: You're right — it's a nice, fine-grained slate. What else?


Undergrad #3: There's a skull with wings.

Undergrad #4: And some Latin on the top.

Tutor Hopkins: Great. We're looking at the material, the iconography, and the language. Who here speaks Latin and can translate for us?

Undergrad #5: Remember Death? Time is fleeting?

Tutor Hopkins: Yep. Time flies. What else do you see?

Undergrad #6: There's an ornate floral design on the bottom.

Undergrad #7: And the top is bumpy.

Tutor Hopkins: Is this the same design aesthetic as the Georgian buildings Prof. X showed you?

Undergrad #8: No — it's sort of symmetrical, but not really geometric like the buildings.

Tutor Hopkins: Keep looking. Anything else jumping out at you?

— silence —


Tutor Hopkins: Anything surprising or unexpected?

— silence —


Tutor Hopkins: Anybody?

Undergrad #1: It's kind of . . . small.

Tutor Hopkins: I suppose. I'm a little surprised that no one has noticed the GIANT BREASTS on the borders. There are eight of them.

Undergrads #2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8: Oh! I saw those, but I didn't think they could really be . . . you know.

Tutor Hopkins: Were you expecting to see GIANT BREASTS on a gravestone from 1710?

Undergrads: No. (nervous giggling)

Tutor Hopkins: The first lesson of using objects as sources: make concrete observations without hampering yourself with expectations. You may find some strange and unexpected things.

(Very attentive undergrads go on to spend a lovely hour noticing things in the graveyard.)

Elaborate Urn

Sometimes, the urns on 19th-century gravestones are embellished with delicate details — initials, fronds, garlands, and, very rarely, soul effigies.

This teeny, vestigial soul effigy is about an inch tall. It is very rare to find soul effigies on gravestones carved after 1820 unless the carver was specifically trying to replicate an outdated style.

Capt. Atwood Drew

d. 1823

Plymouth, MA

Cryptic Symbols

Most of the gravestones in Hatfield's Hill Cemetery are slate, granite, or marble, but a few of the earliest are made of local red sandstone. Several of these were carved by Joseph Nash, who seems to have been a part-time or self-taught carver. His letters are rough and his stones have irregular shapes and barely any decoration. He does seem to have embellished stones by gouging out steps in the surface of the stone — a technique often used to cut out a mistake, but seemingly employed for effect on the John Belding stone (1725).

Some of Nash's stones are embellished with strange symbols:

To me, this looks like crossed bones, a skull, an hourglass, and a pick and shovel:

If I had to guess, I would venture that Nash was attempting to copy the much more intricate stones of the Boston carvers of the late 17th century. Their stones occasionally have rows of cryptic symbols just under the death's head:

Mary Goose, d. 1690

Granary Burying Ground, Boston, MA

Richard Kettell, d. 1680

Phipps St. Cemetery, Charlestown, MA

If that's true, I would guess that Nash may have lived near Boston at one time and remembered that style after he moved west. Those symbols are uncommon on Boston-area stones carved after 1700, but Nash was carving them on his family's stones in the 1720s. This may be an example of an old-fashioned style surviving in a rural area after it has fallen out of fashion in Boston.