Gravestone of the Day: Benjamin Fisk

Benjamin Fisk, 1742, Wenham, MA

HEre Lyeth ye Body

of Mr Benjamin Fisk

Who Died Iune ye 6th

1742 Aged About

67 years

The "Original" 13th Amendment

Last month, the Iowa Republican Party adopted a platform that calls for "the reintroduction and ratification of the original 13th Amendment, not the 13th amendment in today’s Constitution." They mean the 13th Amendment that was passed by congress and ratified by 12 states in 1812 — the one that reads,

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

As far as I can tell, the "Thirteenthers'" interpretation of this almost-amendment is fairly silly — they think it applies to titles such as "Esquire" and awards such as the Nobel Prize.

Of course, there are other failed 13th Amendments still floating around. When I first saw the headline for this story, I thought immediately of the Corwin Amendment — a 13th Amendment that was passed by congress in 1861 and ratified by several states:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State

While the Corwin Amendment was submitted to the states without a deadline and is still technically open for ratification, it is not likely to be ratified by another 35 states anytime soon. The actual 13th Amendment — the one abolishing slavery that actually passed the whole ratification process — makes the Corwin Amendment obsolete. Still, it is not impossible for state legislatures to ratify old amendments — Mississippi didn't get around to ratifying the 13th Amendment until 1995.

I don't think the Iowa Republican Party supports (or knows about) the Corwin Amendment, but I think that Newsweek goes too far in declaring, "No, it's not about slavery." Yes, the arguments of "Thirteenthers" are specifically about the anti-title amendment, but the language of the proposal — calling for a new, old 13th Amendment — is (unintentionally?) suggestive of reopening old debates about the slavery, emancipation, and the other failed 13th Amendment.

Gravestone of the Day: Amy Woods

Amy Woods, 1758, Pepperell, MA

Here lies the Body of

Mrs Amy Woods the

second Wife of Mr Isaac Woods

who departed this Life

September 10th 1758

in the 28th Year of

her Age

from Deaths Arrist no Age is free

Gravestone of the Day: Esther Convers

Esther Convers, 1703, Woburn, MA

HERE LYES Ye

BODY OF ESTHER

CONVERS

DIED NOVEM. Ye 7th

1703 IN Ye

16th YEAR OF HERE

AGE

This stone caught my eye because women of all ages are generally identified in terms of their relationships to husbands/fathers/masters. This is especially true of very young women and girls. This stone is very small — perhaps it was cheaply made and whoever erected it didn't want to pay for the extra letters. Maybe there just wasn't room (though carvers squish in all kinds of text when they want to).

Gravestone of the Day: Sarah Waterman

Sarah Waterman, 1776, North Burial Ground, Providence, RI

In Memory of

Mrs. SARAH

WATERMAN,

Wife of Mr.

Amaziah Waterman

She died Sept. 18th

1776, in the 64th

Year of her 

Age.

Amaziah is a name I haven't run across often, but I like it!

Gravestone of the Day: Bradbary Dweile

Bradbary Dweile, 1748, Norwell, MA

HERE LYES THE

BODY OF BRADBARY

DWEILE DAUGHTER

OF Mr JOSEPH &

Mrs MARY DWEILE

WHO DIED SEPTEMBER

ye 22th. 1748 IN ye 13.

YEAR OF HER AGE.

Good name. "Here lies the body / of Bradbary Dweile" sounds like the first two lines of a nursery rhyme.

Gravestone of the Day: Jonas Fletcher

Jonas Fletcher, 1777, Groton, MA

HERE lies

the Body of Mr.

JONAS FLETCHER

who departed this

Life Decr:   1777

Aged 83

years.

This gravestone seems to have been executed with unusual inattention for a Park workshop stone. "Departed" is carelessly misspelled and there is no precise date of death.

Gravestone of the Day: James Pearson

James Pearson, 1744, Haverhill, MA

HERE LIES BURIED

THE BODY OF
CAPT IAMES PEARSON

WHO DIED DECEMBER

9th 1744 IN THE 67

YEAR OF HIS AGE

Take the Nickname Quiz!

Regular readers know that I am a great lover of all things name-related. The list of names I would want to use for my own child is so extensive (and, some would say, eccentric), that it is a miracle that Pete and I have been able to narrow it down to a single first and single middle name.

During the decision-making process, I have been frequenting a baby naming forum where people share their names and offer feedback on other posters' suggestions. One thing I have found surprising is that many people are unfamiliar with the traditional nicknames for common English names. Often, a poster will suggest a name like Maggie as a full name and then express surprise at learning that Maggie has traditionally been a nickname for Margaret.

Giving children nicknames as given names is not a new phenomenon — the Social Security list of the top 100 names of 1900 is full of Willies, Annies, and Charlies. What I find surprising is the tendency to come up with new names to accommodate nicknames, rather than using the traditional full name. For example, Jack has become very popular recently, but many modern parents prefer it as a full name on its own or a nickname for Jackson (or Jaxon, or Jaxson), rather than as a nickname for John.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to make a quiz based on these observations. Match the historical English nickname with the corresponding full name:

Click here for answers.

Post your score in the comments. Don't feel bad if you didn't get them all — I had to look up a couple just to be sure.

Gravestone of the Day: Jonathan Mors

Jonathan Mors, 1709, Nemasket Hill Cemetery, Middleboro, MA

HERE LYES

ye BODY OF

JONATHAN

MORS: WHO

DECEASED JULY: ye

9: 1709: IN ye 70

YEAR OF HIS AGE

Does anyone know this carver? His letters remind me of runes.

Gravestone of the Day: Twins

Twins, 1706, Nemasket Hill Cemetery, Middleboro, MA

These stones are mostly illegible — I can make out "TWIN" and "1706."

It looks like these were once a pair of head- and footstones that may have fallen over or been rearranged to accommodate a modern lawnmower.

Gravestone of the Day: Ephraim Butterfield

Ephraim Butterfield, 1777, Chelmsford, MA

Memento mori

IN Memory of Mr:

Ephraim Butterfield

son of Capt: John

Butterfield and Mrs Anna

his wife who departed

this Life June 7th: 1777 Aged

36 years and 10 days

The Sin of Adam has laid me lo

For Sin hath wrought an Overthrow

From dust I came to dust Im come

And now the dusts become my home

When Christ comes down with saints to reign

Then dust me no more shall detain

A Cooper's Inventory

Joseph Dyer (1719-1780), son of Lydia Dyer, made his living as a cooper in Boston's North End. As a craftsman who worked in the city's rough-and-tumble waterfront district, he is just the sort of man we think of when we picture an ordinary Bostonian of the Revolutionary era.

When he died in 1780, Dyer was a relatively prosperous craftsman, but still someone who worked with his hands. The inventory from his probate records shows that he was able to accumulate many small luxuries over his lifetime. It is important to keep in mind that 18th-century probate records often show people at their most prosperous, after they have spent a lifetime gathering objects and resources, so we shouldn't assume that all coopers had such extensive household goods. Still, it is helpful to remember that the craftsmen of Boston were able to maintain an impressive (by 18th-c standards) standard of living, even after the economic difficulties of the 1760-1780 period.

The contents of Joseph Dyer's house in 1780:

Cell Phone Video and the Second Amendment

This morning, Andrew Sullivan linked to an ABC article about civilians who have been arrested for capturing video or audio recordings of on-duty police officers. Many discussions of this subject — including the article mentioned above — frame citizens' rights to tape police officers in terms of First Amendment rights, but I'm not sure I agree. 

To me, this is an issue of Second Amendment rights. If the Second Amendment is meant to arm citizens with the tools necessary to protect themselves against encroaching state power, I think that cell phone cameras and YouTube are the muskets of the 21st century. No modern civilian or group of civilians, no matter how well-armed with guns or bombs, has any prayer of fighting off the police (or army) by force. If police officers or soldiers are abusing their power, the best weapon of self-defense available to the modern American is media exposure.

Gravestone of the Day: John and Esther Dunwell

John and Esther Dunwell, 1797, North Burial Ground, Providence, RI

A Memorial of

CAPT.

JOHN DUNWELL,

who died in Surinam in 1766,

aged 51 years.

MRS.

ESTHER DUNWELL,

wife of Capt. John Dunwell,

died Feb. 11, 1797,

aged 77 years.

Behold my night of death has come,

My flesh now rests beneath the tomb;

When the last trumpet shakes the skies,

Then shall my slumbering dust arise.

There is a sub-genre of cenotaphs in maritime communities that are dedicated to husbands who pre-deceased their wives by several decades. These men often died at sea or in far-flung ports. I have noticed a lot of these in Plymouth. In some of the most extreme cases, 50 or 60 years separate the deaths of husbands and wives.

The Dunwells died 31 years apart, but the gravestone still identifies Esther as the "wife of Capt. John Dunwell." I imagine that someone who died in Surinam probably wasn't home a lot even when he was alive. What does it mean to be the wife of someone who died three decades ago? This gravestone does some substantial imaginative work — it reunites two people across many years and many miles and restores the idealized version of their relationship: independent adult man and wife. The gravestone becomes a monument to a fiction that does not bear very much resemblance to day-to-day life.

I'm also trying to pay attention to is the chronology of resurrection imagery and allusions. This particular epitaph also appears on the Eleazer Nickerson stone (1796).

Gravestone of the Day: Martha Willis

Martha Willis, 1792, West Bridgewater, MA

Here lies

Mrs MARTHA WILLIS

wife of

Mr. NATHAN WILLIS,

Died March 27th 1792,

in her 54th Year

In all fairness to Sarah Palin . . .

. . . the word "refudiate" would allow me to point out the inaccuracy of her statements while simultaneously denouncing them. It fills a need.

Rev. Increase Poope?

This morning, while looking for information on Daniel Malcom, I stumbled across a Freedom Trail website that gives biographical information for the first-person characters adopted by tour guides. As far as I can tell, these are all real people — Phillis Wheatley, Dr. Samuel Prescott, Deborah Samson, Crispus Attucks, etc.

One of the people is Jeremiah Poope, a native of Roxbury who was killed en route to the Battle of Bunker Hill. The bio says that Jeremiah was "the 13th of 18 children born to Mehitable Clapp and Rev. Increase Poope."

So the question is, was there really a minister named Increase Poope living in the Boston area in the mid-18th century? If there was, the internet appears not to know about him, and I can't imagine that any minister would go unrecorded. I have also looked for Increase Poop and Increase Pope, but haven't found anything in Roxbury or elsewhere.

A follow-up question: If Rev. Increase Poope did not actually exist, who chose this name for the Freedom Trail guide and why?

In other news, my "recent searches" menu now contains all possible spellings of both "Poope" and "Clapp."