Cazneau Bayley

 Cazneau Bayley, Portsmouth, NH, 1808

101 Ways, Part 86: Resigned This Life in Calm and Humble Hope of Heaven

For a brief intro to the "101 Ways to Say 'Died'" series, click here.

It's part 86 of this series and I've finally found a gravestone that explicitly mentions heaven. I thought it would never happen. One other uses the adjective "heavenly," but that's as close as I've gotten.

It's telling that this stone dates from the 19th century rather than the 17th or 18th. I don't have a very clear sense of how Puritans imagined heaven — they don't seem to have dwelled on the particulars. I've read plenty of Puritan sermons on hell, salvation, and resurrection, but not on the specifics of heaven. Most of the time, Puritan preachers seem to use "heaven" to mean "place where God lives" or "Providence," but they certainly don't seem to have foreshadowed the fluffy-cloud heaven invented by later generations. What did they imagine the experience of heaven would be? I have no idea.

Here Sleep

The Remains of

Mrs. Elizabeth Fernald

Wife of

Mr. Nathanl. W. Fernald, & daughter of

Capt. Nathanl. Melcher,

who resigned this life,

in calm and humble hope of heaven

October 5th. 1809, Aged 36 Years.

Kind husband, children, parents, friends,

When here you rest your eye;

Or pensive tread this hallow'd ground,

Remember, you must die.

Elizabeth Fernald, Portsmouth, NH, 1809

Shower of Stars

I haven't posted a book review in a while. This is not because I haven't been reading — I've been reading until my brain feels like mush in preparation for my upcoming oral exams. When I'm done with this mess, I'll need a full year of nothing but movies to reboot.

Among the more enjoyable books I've read in the past month is John J. Pullen's A Shower of Stars: The Medal of Honor and the 27th Maine (1967). I have some nostalgic affection for Pullen because my mother used to read to us from his The 20th Maine when we were children. A Shower of Stars is an entertaining read — the story of one cantankerous historian/journalist's quest to find out why the 27th Maine Volunteer Infantry was awarded 864 Medals of Honor and to track down the surviving medals.

The historical incident is interesting enough. In June of 1863, as the Army of the Potomac attempted to block Lee's advance into Northern territory, many of the 2-year enlistments were running out. Most of the men of the 27th Maine took their discharges and went home, but about 300 agreed to stay past the term of their enlistment in order to guard Washington, D.C. when the rest of the army left town to fight in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Secretary of War Stanton awarded these men Medals of Honor in recognition of their service, but, through a bureaucratic snafu, the medal was issued to all 864 soldiers on the muster rolls. When the medals were struck they were sent to the unit's colonel for distribution, but Colonel Wentworth felt that they had been awarded in error, so he never handed them out. A few men received their medals, but most stayed in boxes in Wenthworth's barn. In 1917, Congress rescinded most of the medals, but left the original 300 in limbo.

That's all well and good, but the real joy of reading A Shower of Stars comes from Pullen. He is a cranky, judgmental bastard and it's delicious. The first two times he assured his reader that little boys should be caned far more often than they typically are, I figured he was probably joking, but it just kept coming up.

Pullen's relentless Whiggishness deplores any historical incident that stands in the way of Progress. He is totally incapable of considering the Civil War-era Medal of Honor on its own terms — any deviation from its WWII incarnation as a combat medal awarded for extreme valor (often posthumously) is an "assault on the integrity of the Medal of Honor." Such travesties include the 27th Main's "shower of stars," along with the 29 medals awarded to Lincoln's funeral guard and Mary Walker's Medal of Honor. He reserves special contempt for Walker, whom he calls "a woman's rights zealot" who joined the army just to stir up trouble. Stanton is a "pernicious" idiot who never gives the Medal of Honor the respect it deserves. Of course, there was no reason for Stanton to adhere to WWII-era standards for awarding the medal, but historical thinking never gets in the way of Pullen's ranting.

Perhaps in other circumstances, I would have been annoyed by this, but I was so glad to be reading a book with personality that I just found it charming.

If you're up for a light summer read, you could do worse than A Shower of Stars. If you're up for it, you can even turn it into a drinking game: drink when Pullen advocates beating children, drink when Pullen says something nasty about Stanton, drink when Pullen uses a synonym for "integrity," etc.

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.

*Applause*

I need to take a minute to thank everyone who worked on the new version of HOLLIS. I have multiple gray hairs that I can positively attribute to the old HOLLIS, but the new version is lovely. I love the subject maps.

Bravo, library people. A million thanks.

John Bull's Creepy Alien Phase

In the 1760s, John Bull went through a phase where he cut faces framed by scythes and hourglasses. The scythes slash underneath the heads, cutting them off at the neck or shoulders.

All of the faces are oddly distorted in some way. The Elizabeth Davenport stone in Little Compton (which is signed) has one of the strangest variations of this motif — a serene, huge-eyed, tiny-chinned, bald figure that looks like an ethereal alien:

Other versions of this design feature fat, lumpy ogre-babies or less extreme versions of the bald alien:

Ann Clarke, Newport, RI, 1764

John Bennet, Newport, RI, 1767

Thomas Crowley, Newport, RI, 1769

As with many examples of John Bull's work, these stones show originality, talent, and imagination. I think John Bull was one of the only authentic geniuses in early American sculpture — he forged his own aesthetic path and I always have the feeling that he's laughing at us.

Wakefield Trumpets

Back in March, I posted a collection of trumpet imagery from New England gravestones. Since then, I found a few more in Wakefield — three stones all in a row.

Thomas Nichols, Wakefield, MA, 1765:

Elizabeth Lambert, Wakefield, MA, 1775:

Thomas Lambert, Wakefield, 1753:

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!

D-Day +65 Years

I'm sure that many people will post commemorative essays on this, the 65th anniversary of D-Day. I will mark the day by looking through the LIFE photographs and watching Band of Brothers.

More here.

"A Bud From Plymouth's Mayflower"

The Little Compton graveyard is the final resting place of many important New Englanders, including Elizabeth Alden Pabodie, daughter of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins.

When she died in 1717, Elizabeth's family erected an ordinary headstone similar to her husband's. Over a century and a half later, after her great-great-great-great-grandson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, made her parents famous in "The Courtship of Miles Standish," Elizabeth got an impressive obelisk. In 1717, she was merely "the wife of William Pabodie." In 1882, she was "the first white woman born in New England."

I'm becoming more interested in the ways in which gravestones were pressed into service in the creation of a distinctive New England identity in the 18th and 19th centuries — this is a great example of how commemoration changed over a century and a half.

Whoever erected the monument also composed a poem:

A bud from Plymouth's Mayflower sprung,

Transplanted here to live and bloom,

Her memory, ever sweet and young,

The Centuries Guard within this tomb.

Supreme Names

With all the ridiculous flap over the pronunciation of Sonia Sotomayor's name, I thought it might be interesting to look back over the great names of Supreme Court Justices past. If I were appointing a bench based solely on names, rather than politics, it would include these nine:

9. Horace Harmon Lurton
Some names flow lyrically off the tongue. Others lurch from consonant to consonant. The finest belong to the latter category and include sounds that remind you of words like halt and lurch.

8. Roger Brooke Taney
All together now: TAW-nee

7. David Davis
I heart alliteration.

6. Morrison Remick Waite
No particular reason here — I just liked this name. It sounds like a type of gun, yet is still pompous enough to suit a Gilded Age judge.

5. Thurgood Marshall
I'm actually slightly surprised that Thurgood did not break the top 1,000 boys' names in the late 1960s. According to the SSA, these names beat out Thurgood among American boys born in 1969: Elizabeth (#974), Antonia (#971), Bertram (#967), Thor (#956), Patricia (#953), Amy (#932), Maria (#929), Melissa (#918), Merlin (#896), Karen (#891), and Thurman (#709). When a masculine name is less popular than Elizabeth, it's pretty rare.

4. Bushrod Washington
Bushrod and Thurgood would make good twin names. My younger brother, Wheeler, often threatens to name all his future children after Norse gods, but I think he might be willing to consider this pair of strong, Germanic names.

3. Felix Frankfurter
Alliteration strikes again.

2. Salmon P. Chase
Salmon is a legit Bible name, I admit. This makes the list because I first learned about Salmon P. Chase from Ken Burns' The Civil War when I was in elementary school. The first time I heard his name, I formed a mental image of sprightly fish enjoying a game of tag. I have never been able to overcome the association.

Chief Justice: Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar
No contest.

For what it's worth, I like Sotomayor's name (not that anyone should care a fig for my approval or disapproval). It's alliterative and, despite what certain jackasses have said in the media, I find that it flows easily and lyrically. "Sonia" is a great name — familiar, but not too common. With the current trend of Sophie/Sophia/Sofia showing no signs of abating, I would be unsurprised to see an uptick in the popularity of "Sonia" over the next few years. Sonia Sotomayor. It's a strong, distinctive, iconic name.

101 Ways, Part 85: Gone Home

For a brief intro to the "101 Ways to Say 'Died'" series, click here.

I don't have a precise date for this one — it looks to be from the second quarter of the 19th century.

Betsey Simmons

AE. 84 yrs.

Gone Home.

Little Compton, RI

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.

Jefferson Davis

Today is Jefferson Davis' 201st birthday. To mark the occasion, I found young namesakes from each of the Confederate states:

Alabama
Jefferson Davis Isaac, Gordonsville, AL, b. 1873
(brother: General Lee Isaac)

Arkansas
Jefferson Davis Ferguson, Crockett, AR, b. 1859
(siblings: Robert E. Lee Ferguson, Joseph E. Johnston Ferguson, Kansas Ferguson)

Florida
Jeff Davis Stanley, Jackson Co., Florida, b. 1861

Georgia
Jefferson Davis Vaughn, Griffin, GA, b. 1866
(brother: Robert Lee Vaughn)

Louisiana
Jefferson Davis Thomas, Claiborne, LA, b. 1863
(brother Martin Luther Thomas)

Mississippi
Jeff Davis Maxwell
(brother: R.E.Lee Maxwell, Sharkey Co., MS, b. 1868)

North Carolina
Jefferson Davis Holmes, Smithville, NC, b. 1866
(twin brother: Stonewall Jackson Holmes)

South Carolina
Jeff Davis Hair, Blackville, SC, b. 1871

Tennessee
Jeff Davis Walker, Giles Co., Tennessee, b. 1863
(I am working on a post about siblings named Jeff Davis and Abe Lincoln or Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant, etc.)

Texas
Jefferson Davis Barnes, Clay, TX, b. 1859
(brother Robert E. Lee Barnes)

Virginia
Jeff Davis Penn, Mayo River, VA, b. 1864
(brothers: Genl. Lee Penn, George Washington Penn)

It's not just the South . . .


California

Jefferson Davis De Gear, San Francisco, CA, b. 1861

(brothers: Albert Sidney Johnston De Gear, Wade Hampton De Gear)

Oregon:
Jefferson Davis Boyles, OR, b. 1874
(brother: Lee Boyles)

101 Ways, Part 84: . . . And Have Never Since Been Heard Of

For a brief intro to the "101 Ways to Say 'Died'" series, click here.

Erected in Memory of

CAPT.

ISAAC TOMPKINS,

aged 27 years and

DAVIS S. TOMPKINS

aged 19 years,

sons of

Mr. Benjamin Tompkins

and Deborah his wife.

They sailed from Norfolk,

Va. Aug. 24. 1826.

in the brig MARY-ELIZA,

bound to Antigua

and have never since been 

heard of.

Isaac and Davis Tompkins, Little Compton, RI, 1826

101 Ways, Part 83: Arrested By Death

For a brief intro to the "101 Ways to Say 'Died'" series, click here.

Erected

in memory of

Mr. CALEB CHURCH

who in health was instantly

arrsted by Death

Sept. 30th. 1825.

Aged 67.

Caleb Church, Little Compton, RI, 1825