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MARKERS X

las ;>«!

Journal of the
Association for Gravestone Studies

Markers X

Journal of
the Association for
Gravestone Studies

Edited hy
Richard E. Meyer

Association for Gravestone Studies
Worcester, Massachusetts

Association for Gravestone Studies

30 Elm Street
Worcester, Massachusetts 01601

ISBN: 1-878381-03-02

ISSN: 0277-8726
LCN: 81-642903

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information Sciences - Permanence of

Paper for Printed Library materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Cover photo: Robert Knozvles, 1703, Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Photograph by Daniel and Jessie Lie Farber.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
A Chronological Survey of the Gravestones Made by Calvm
Barber of Simsbiiry, Connecticut

Stephen Petke 1

The Chinese of Valhalla: Adaptation and Identity in a
Midwestern American Cemetery

C. Fred Blake 53

Fifty Years of Reliability: The Stonecarving Career of
Charles Lloyd Neale (1800-1866) in Alexandria, Virginia

David Vance Finnell 91

The Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville, Kentucky: Mirrors
of Historical Processes and Theological Diversity
through 150 Years

David M. Gradwohl 117

The Lamson Family Gravestone Carvers of Charlestown and
Maiden, Massachusetts

Ralph L. Tucker 151

The Protestant Cemetery in Florence and Anglo-American
Attitudes Toward Italy

James A. Freeman 219

Contributors 243

Index 244

MARKERS: JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION
FOR GRAVESTONE STUDIES

EDITORIAL BOARD

Richard E. Meyer, Editor
Western Oregon State College

Theodore Chase Warren Roberts

Editor, Markers V-IX Indiana University

Jessie Lie Farber Barbara Rotundo

Mount Holyoke College State University of New York

Editor, Markers I at Albany

Richard Franca viglia James A. Slater

University of Texas at Arlington University of Connecticut

David Watters

University of New Hampshire

Editor, Markers II-IV

As an avid reader of Markers since its initial appearance in 1980, I
have been privileged to witness the evolution of this landmark annual
publication over its first nine issues. Now, with this, the tenth issue of
the journal, the responsibilities of editorship have fallen to me, and in
assuming them I am struck with an awareness both of the enormous
debt I owe to those who have performed these tasks before me and of the
many challenges which lie ahead.

Markers X presents the tone and balance which I hope will characterize
the journal as it moves into the second decade of its existence - a blending
of the type of traditional folk carver studies which have built and sus-
tained the publication's reputation and a series of interpretive articles
which expand its scope into matters of regionalism, ethnicity and other
concerns relating directly to a fuller understanding of the role gravemark-
ers and cemeteries play in the broad spectrum of American culture.

In assembling this issue, I have been aided enormously by the tireless
efforts of an editorial advisory board whose many thoughtful comments
and suggestions have enhanced greatly the breadth and quality of the
various articles contained herein. Both I and the individual contributors
owe them our profoundest gratitude.

Thanks also are owed to a number of others: to Western Oregon State
College for its generous indirect financial support of the editor's respon-
sibilities; to the American Institute of Commemorative Art and to sever-
al anonymous donors for their direct financial assistance to the journal;
to Ted Chase, the previous editor of Markers, whose counsel and assis-
tance to me in this period of transition have been invaluable; to the staff
members of Oregon Typography and Print Tek West, both of Salem, Ore-
gon, whose assiduous efforts are in great measure responsible for the
handsome appearance of the volume you now hold; to the officers,
board members and general membership of the Association for Grave-
stone Studies for their many gestures of encouragement and support;
and, finally, to Lotte Larsen, whose strength and loving presence keep
the editor sane and happy when the stresses of scholarship threaten to
engulf him.

Information concerning the submission of manuscripts for future
issues of Markers may be obtained upon request from Richard E. Meyer,
Editor, Markers: Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies, English
Department, Western Oregon State College, Monmouth, Oregon 97361.
For information about other AGS publications, membership, and activi-
ties, write to the Association's Executive Director, Miranda Levin, 30 Elm
Street, Worcester, Massachusetts 01601, or call (508) 831-7753.

Fig. 1 Map Illustrating Locations of Documented Barber Gravestones

A CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE GRAVESTONES MADE BY
CALVIN BARBER OF SIMSBURY, CONNECTICUT

Stephen Petke

Beneath the towering pines and to the sides of the central path of the
eastern slope of Simsbury's Hop Meadow Burying Yard stand some sixty
sandstone gravemarkers with remarkably similar decorative character-
istics. These gravestones, most of which are dated between 1792-1807,
feature a pear-shaped face with a small, thin, down-turned mouth, thin
almond-shaped eyes and curved eyebrows and a long, two-lobed nose.
The face is often encircled with striated wings and wavy headdress. The
borders are symmetrical s-shaped curves which occasionally merge at
the finial into an abstract flower bud. The legend is carved chiefly in
upper- and lower-case block letters with liberal serifs. The capital letters
AD are fused and followed by a colon. The numbers tend to be quite
large and full-bellied.

The maker of these gravestones, Calvin Barber, signed none of them,
but fortuitously left an extraordinary record of his work in two now des-
iccated account books currently in the possession of the Simsbury
Historical Society. Barber's account books are a veritable gold mine of
information about his life, his business ventures, his carving shop, and,
especially, the individual stones which he made. It is indeed rare that
such documentation exists and that it is possible to catalog nearly the
entire output of a carver by having a record of his work. With Barber's
account books one can trace changes in style, lettering, materials, costs
and dispersal of his works. From reading these two volumes it becomes
clear that Calvin Barber dominated the gravestone carving business in
Simsbury and adjacent Farmington River Valley towns from 1793 until
1820. Even allowing for the tremendous increase in the number of grave-
stones erected after the American Revolution, Barber's output is signifi-
cant. He placed over 150 stones in Simsbury, ninety in Canton, sixty in
Granby, fifty in Bloomfield, twenty-five in East Granby and a scattering
in the Connecticut towns of Avon, Windsor, East and West Hartland,
Burlington, New Hartford, Winchester, West Hartford, Suffield, Bark-
hamsted, and the Massachusetts border town of South wick (see Fig. 1).
In all, at least 425 gravemarkers in this area can be documented or safely
attributed to Calvin Barber. The volume of his work may easily exceed

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

this figure: however, the lack of consistent documentation and the lack
of distinction among much of the gravestone styles in the Farmington
Valley after 1820 do not allow for conclusive attribution. These obstacles
notwithstanding, it is certain that Barber was the region's most popular
carver during the transformation of the craft at the turn of the century.

When Calvin Barber's father, Daniel, died in 1779 at the age of 46, he
left a humble estate worth just over 100 pounds. Incompetently man-
aged by the executors, these assets quickly diminished and the widow,
Martha (Phelps) Barber, found herself unable to care for her many chil-
dren. At eight years of age, and against his will, her son, Calvin, was
apprenticed to his brother-in-law, Jacob Pettibone, to learn the business
of stonecutting and masonry. Whether or not Calvin Barber learned how
to carve gravestones from Jacob Pettibone is uncertain. There is limited
evidence which suggests that Pettibone may have produced grave-
stones. His inventory included two chisels, two crowbars, one stone
hammer, and two stone augers, but these would not have been used
exclusively, if at all, for cutting gravestones. The gravestone carved for
Pettibone's son, Jacob Wayne Pettibone (Simsbury, 1781), bears some
resemblance to the early documented works of Calvin Barber and it
would not have been uncommon for a father in the stonecutting busi-
ness to memorialize his son with a marker of his own making.
Pettibone's contemporary, Isaac Sweetland of Windsor and Hartford,
was clearly active in gravestone making in the 1780s and there are simi-
larities in the carving styles of Barber and Sweetland (see Figs. 2 and 3).
Sweetland, incidentally, continued to carve for another forty years until
his death in 1823 and remains a figure worthy of continued research by
gravestone scholars.

Wherever he learned his trade, Calvin Barber learned it well. By 1793
he had married Rowena Humphrey, daughter of Major Elihu
Humphrey, and was already established as a competent stone mason
and gravestone carver. In the same year Calvin received his first military
appointment, the designation of corporal. Successive appointments over
the next fifteen years elevated him to the position of lieutenant colonel.
Calvin's education must have also included academic training, for his
account books are well-written and meticulously maintained. His train-
ing would bear abundant fruit. He would serve as Justice of the Peace
for the county from 1806-1815 and in a legal capacity for the State of
Connecticut. From rather unassuming beginnings, Calvin Barber would

Stephen Petke

v: '5

< . ^

*/' r

^'v.

Fig. 2 Major Elihu Humphrey, 1777, Hopmeadow Cemetery,

Simsbury. Documented to Isaac Sweetland. Calvin Barber's early

carving resembles this Sweetland style.

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

become one of the shrewdest and most prominent businessmen in
Simsbury in the early nineteenth century.^

Gravestone making was rarely an occupation that could support an
ambitious Yankee. In fact, Calvin Barber's gravestone business supple-
mented his major occupation as a mason and stonecutter. The residents
of the Farmington Valley also patronized Calvin Barber for their stoves,
sinks, mantels, hearths and well caps. He furnished the stone for the
underpinning, steps and hearth for the Turkey Hills meeting house from
1796-1802 and provided the stone for the elaborate house of Solomon
Rockwell of Winchester, now the home of the Winchester Historical
Society. Later, Barber would build the arches for the Farmington canal
through Simsbury.

Calvin Barber obtained the variegated, reddish orange-brown sand-
stone used to form gravestones from two quarries, one at Hop Brook,
just south of the present day First Church of Christ in Simsbury, and
another adjoining his own wooded lot.^ The stone used by Barber can be
distinguished easily from the redder stone used by the Drake family of
carvers in the area around Windsor, Connecticut and the browner sand-
stone quarried in the Portland /Middletown section of the state. The
color of the stone quarried in Simsbury resembles the sandstone from
the nearby Longmeadow/ Springfield area of Massachusetts, though the
former is coarser in texture. At the time Barber began to carve grave-
stones, the quarry at Hop Brook was owned by John Poyson. Calvin
bartered his labor in exchange for the use of the quarry:

Know all men by these presences that I, Calvin Barber of Simsbury do for
the consideration of twelve pounds [new tenor?] do bind myself to bild a
chimney to a dwelling hous for Mr. John Pason. Said Pyson to bord said
Barber and find [timber?] and to deliver materials for said chimney also.
Said Barber is to under pin said hous to the sills; one side of said hous to
be hewed stone, the other part of said hous to be ruf and not hewed but of
plate stone. Said Barber is to furnish said underpinning stone and to
deHver them in the quarry and said Pyson to dr[aw] them to the hous.
The above [task] to be finished the first day of January, 1796.

For which labor I am to have the privilege of a quarry of ston[e] which 1
am now improving and have bin for the time of two years; said Barber to
have the benefit of said quarry from the north bounds to the broolc which
bounds we have this day put up, said quarrys are at the upper and lower
mills so-called in Hopmeadow in Simsbury.

(signed) John Poyson
Calvin Barber

Stephen Petke

0^^;&^-- Miitf^ ,

Fig. 3 Lieutenant Andrew Robe, 1792, Hopmeadow Cemetery,

Simsbury. Documented to Calvin Barber. This stone illustrates

similarities and differences in Barber's early work and that of

Isaac Sweetland.

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

Dated at Simsbury
this 16th day of Dec, 1795
in presence of
(signed) Theo Woodbridge
Ebenezer Smith^

In 1807 Barber purchased outright the quarry at Hop Brook from
Jonas Stanbury, a New York land speculator, and continued to own his
two quarries, valued at $175, until his death in 1846.

The early sandstone gravestones

The earliest stones made by Calvin Barber resemble the circle cherub
style of the Elihu Humphrey stone (Simsbury, 1777, Fig. 2), carved by
Isaac Sweetland.4 The stone carved by Barber for Lieutenant Andrew
Robe (Simsbury, 1792, Fig. 3), which was purchased in March, 1793,
illustrates both the similarities and the differences. The head of the
cherub on both stones is encircled by short, upswept, striated wings and
the wavy headdress, and is flanked by two pinwheel rosettes. A drape-
like pendency appears over the head. The eyes on the Robe stone, how-
ever, are thinner, as are the eyebrows, and the long nose has two lobes
instead of three. The border decorations are the familiar s-shaped curves
merging into a flower stem and bud. In the legend the fused AD is com-
mon to both, as are the colon and the size and shape of the numerals. The
connector in the A of the Robe stone, however, is not v-shaped as in the
stone carved by Sweetland, and the thorn (the symbol Y for the "th"
sound, as in Ye for the) is not used. Barber rarely used the thorn in his
lettering. The cost of each stone was two pounds.

By the mid 1790s Barber had modified his carving, simplifying and
standardizing the basic design of his "two-pound, five-shilling" grave-
stone. The marker for Deborah Case (Simsbury, 1796, Fig. 4) shows that
the mouth has been turned down and that the borders contain a thin,
undulating abstract vine motif. The numbers are quite large and the
relief is rather shallow. Occasionally, as in the stone for Asenath
Humphrey (Simsbury, 1795, Fig. 5), Barber substituted a pair of flowers
in place of the usual pinwheel rosettes. The borders too could be modi-
fied, using plain, straight lines, as in the marker for Liberty Phelps
(Canton, 1796). Barber's stones for children often were simplified even
more by eliminating much of the epitaph and minimizing the amount of
carving in the lunette and borders. His earliest documented stone for a

Stephen Petke

fyp In Memory of ^ .

flMrf Deborah "Cafe^,-
iMWife ofGaplCharfeg
llCarcJ^-i^- She DlcA i

fel>m!^A I 79co i

• . : .• .■4'^ ■-■;:

I. 'Ji-' U'^ . ;

Fig. 4 Deborah Case, 1796, Hopmeadow Cemetery, Simsbury.

Documented to Calvin Barber. Simplified design used by Barber in

the mid-1790s in his "two pound, five shilling" gravestones.

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

^^1

\5i r- M Al H;'( .,

Fig. 5 Asenath Humphrey, 1795, Hopmeadow Cemetery, Simsbury.

Documented to Calvin Barber. An occasional Barber design in which

he replaced his usual pinwheel rosettes with flowers.

child, that for Love Ensign (Simsbury, 1794, Fig. 6) was cut using the
streamlined version of Barber's basic gravestone design. The limited
amount of carving reduced the cost of such a stone to just one pound,
four shillings.

Although Calvin Barber had largely standardized his gravestone
production within the first two years of operation, and the cost of such
stones was now within the reach of some of the moderately wealthy and
middle class citizens of the Farmington Valley, the most prominent and
prosperous of the Valley's populace could still distinguish themselves by
having erected distinctive gravemarkers cut by Calvin Barber. Carved in
1797, the gravestone of Colonel Jonathan Humphrey (Simsbury, 1794,
Fig. 7) stands apart from Barber's more conventional gravestones. While
the lettering and facial features are readily recognizable as from Barber's
hand, the central image is transformed by the large, solid, scimitar-like
wings which arch up powerfully from below the chin. They are support-
ed by two small pillars (recalling the Biblical Jachin and Boaz) and a
globe within a box. The headdress is far more elaborate than is usual for
Barber's work and the intricate scrolled-head tympanum, which was

Stephen Petke

III Memoi
f.ove K|ifi

She Died /<Vu^U(
the 2%||^

Aged |:(|^6<*rs ^

'X^ <9>^y>^^

Fig. 6 Love Ensign, 1794, Hopmeadow Cemetery, Simsbury.

Documented to Calvin Barber. Barber's earliest documented stone for

a child and typical of the streamlined version of his basic design.

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

Fig. 7 Colonel Jonathan Humphrey, 1794, Hopmeadow Cemetery,

Simsbiuy. Documented to Calvin Barber. An example of an elaborate

design carved for a prosperous citizen.

specifically requested by the deceased's son, completes this decidedly
fashionable monument. Colonel Jonathan Humphrey was one of the
leading citizens of Simsbury. He served as a lieutenant on Lake
Champlain during the French-Indian War and as a colonel at Peekskill,
New York during the revolution. He commanded a force of 1,149 men,
three-fourths of which he had mustered in Simsbury. On the domestic
front, he helped to establish Newgate prison and represented his town in
the Connecticut General Assembly and as a selectman. He owned a styl-
ish center-chimney "saltbox" house and some 165 acres of land. Though
his entire inventory of over 1,000 pounds does not indicate a man of
great wealth, it is likely that some of his fortune was spent during the
Revolution or had been conferred to his heirs prior to his death.s A simi-
larly elaborate scroll pediment gravestone was carved for Matthew
Adams (Bloomfield, 1776, Fig. 8) and was placed some twenty years
after his death.

Calvin Barber merged his scimitar wing and s-shaped curved border
styles in executing the gravestones for his father, Daniel Barber

Stephen Petke

m^^

b-ibsfe^^

Jjeath

■ r^ ' • , •£» •'

Fig. 8 Matthew Adams, 1776, St. Andrews Cemetery, Bloomfield.

Documented to Calvin Barber. Carved and erected in 1797, twenty

years after Adams' death.

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

l'-\ \U IVltOfyfORY OF

Ho Drccl Aru-ff Hic

{a^lVO I779:fn A

W/i (• n 7A 0 )x f/i a l[ </ n //

/..(•)• /,

ini.'f'- of rljiy^Kf i„,('

*-/..

Fig. 9 Daniel Barber, 1779, Hopmeadow Cemetery, Simsbury.

Attributed to Calvin Barber. This stone for Calvin's father is

bacicdated by some 15 years.

Stephen Petke

i Son af

1 ■ „ '

Capt. A^ftron Pinnev

And Su sail a his We

Died Augfjsf 4^

180^6

f n t h e 1 7 y ^ ^ r of h is ^ g e

Parents S.Ypu^:f^f
Whenthh jou see

A solemn lesson

IfBsrn from.me

JJotdRtbeeh^m
- ' \Anf/ J^jy o^-^/^^'^^-
The shi^ft^of "ie^n-

Fig. 10 Bidwell Piimey, 1806, St. Andrews Cemetery, Bloomfield.
Attributed to Calvin Barber. Typical of an unomamented style that
Barber carved and placed only in this yard for two decades beginnin

in the mid-1790s.

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

Fig. 11 Michael Moses, 1797, Hopmeadow Cemetery, Simsbury.

Documented to Calvin Barber. Around 1800, Barber began to simplify

his carving, progressing toward an unomamented uniformity.

Stephen Petke 15

(Simsbury, 1779, Fig. 9) and for Hezekiah Humphrey (Simsbury, 1781).
These stones, both of which are backdated by roughly 15 years, are more
deeply cut than many of Calvin's other works, and the attentive carving
in the lunette sets these two stones apart from Barber's more common
gravemarkers.

Beginning in the mid 1790s, Barber also began to furnish gravemark-
ers from a different sandstone and of a different style for the deceased at
the St. Andrew's church in a section of North Bloomfield, at the time
called Scotland. While some of Barber's more elaborate scimitar wing
style stones were placed here, a majority of sandstone markers cut for
this congregation by Barber were rectangular grayish-brown grave-
stones with inscriptions but no ornamental carving (see Fig. 10). The ear-
liest of these was carved in 1795. In addition to the composition and
shape of this stone, the lettering that Barber used differs from his typical
style. The carving is more fluid, many of the letters being italicized or
delicately slanted. Barber would continue supplying this style of grave-
stone over the next two decades. In no other Farmington Valley burying
ground, however, does one find the rectangular grayish brown grave-
stone with no decoration that Barber carved for the St. Andrew's church.

Nineteenth century winged-face sandstone gravestones

Around 1800, Calvin Barber began to further simplify his basic
design by gradually eliminating the striated lines in his effigies' wings
and thinning the eyes and eyebrows. The Michael Moses stone
(Simsbury, 1801, Fig. 11) illustrates the progression toward this unorna-
mented uniformity. Barber's movement toward greater simplicity was
no doubt driven by his desire to produce gravestones efficiently rather
than by his lack of skill or creativity. There are, nonetheless, occasional
examples of a rare but not unexpected mistake, as, for example, a back-
ward number 4 in the stone carved for John Cowles (New Hartford,
1792).

Amidst the monotony of the mass-produced gravestone, Calvin
Barber did, at times and for the proper dignitary, furnish a monument of
considerable artistry, invention and proficiency. Among his sandstone
masterpieces must be included the monument for Doctor Jonathan Bird
(Simsbury, 1786, Fig. 12). This stone, carved in 1795, is a remarkably exe-
cuted sculpture which demonstrates Barber's tremendous facility in
carving intricate details upon gravestones of sweeping proportions.

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

Fig. 12 Doctor Jonathan Bird, 1786, Hopmeadow Cemetery,

Simsbury. Documented to Calvin Barber. One of Barber's

sandstone masterpieces blending traditional folk imagery with

newer classical images.

Stephen Petke 17

Given the time, motivation, and remuneration (the stone cost six
pounds), Calvin Barber could create works which rivaled the best prod-
ucts of the Valley's finest carving tradition. The Bird stone, with its right-
angled shoulders, features a conventional cherub face with elaborate
curly headdress surrounded by delicately carved vines. The space
directly below the tympanum shows a quintet of Masonic symbols: the
sun, the square and compass, the all-seeing eye, and the crescent moon.
The inscription, also carved with great care, reads:

IN MEMORY of Doct. JONATHAN BIRD, who (After exhibiting a strik-
ing example of Philosophic patience and Fortitude through a distressing
ilkiess) Departed this Life on the 17th of Deem AD 1786. In the 43 Year of
his Age.

FAITH. HOPE. CHARITY.

Stop Brother and impart a generous sigh, O're one in prime called to
resign his breath. Since all your social band this Scene must tie, Square all
your work before the hour of DEATH.

During the late 1700s and early 1800s a movement toward adaptation
of neoclassical motifs saw a parallel tendency to abandon many of the
typical religious symbols and to recognize one's allegiance to earth-
bound institutions. This period represented a transitional phase as
gravestone images and carving techniques shifted from expressions of
folk culture to manifestations of professional training and popular cul-
ture. The apparent religious images (cherubs, angels, and soul effigies)
were gradually replaced by neoclassical and secular images (urns, wil-
lows, columns, and curtains.) In addition to the changes in imagery, this
period witnessed a change in technology. Instead of the freehand cre-
ation of designs by individual carvers, gravestone production relied on
the use of stencils or patterns for designs. The rise in Freemasonry paral-
leled this transformation in gravestone art. This quasi-religious group
displayed its loyalty to the fraternal order by placing their symbols on
selected markers in New England. The Bird stone is an exceptional
example of the blending of traditional folk imagery and newer worldly
and popular images. The traditional cherub face is merged with the sun
and the moon symbolizing light, the square and compass representing
reason and relationship with God, and the all-seeing eye of a vigilant
God. The words Faith, Hope, and Charity stand for the three rungs of

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

i J.

Fig. 13 Mary Clark and daughter, 1808, St. Andrews Cemetery,

Bloomfield. Documented to Calvin Barber. This stone illustrates the

economy of the carving seen in much of Barber's later work.

Jacob's ladder.6

During the latter portion of the new century's first decade, Calvin
Barber eliminated the rosettes from the lunette of his stones and carved
very few excess lines or ornamentation. Border decorations disappeared
and inscriptions became terse. Within a few years Barber would price his
stones according to the number of characters and begin to charge inter-
est on accounts past due. The gravestone of Mary Clark and daughter
(Bloomfield, 1808, Fig. 13) illustrates the continuing sparseness and
economy of the carving. The drape-like pendency above the face has
now become the outline of the tympanum. The encircling wings are
more abstract than ever, and the headdress contains but a few large
curls. As late as 1819, Barber was still providing gravestones with the
cherub face motif to those who had no preference for the more current
styles.

Neoclassical sandstone gravestones

The proliferation of the urn-and-willow motif in the last decade of

Stephen Petke

Fig. 14 Richard Gay, 1805, Center Cemetery, East Granby.

Documented to Calvin Barber. An example of the "locket style," one

of Barber's three um-and-willow designs.

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century
engulfed virtually all major New England carvers, among them Calvin
Barber. After 1810, with few exceptions, the winged-effigy or cherub-
faced stones (which one associates with the colonial carving tradition)
were made by Calvin Barber generally for children and wives whose
older surviving relatives ordered the then-outmoded cherub face motif.
For the new generation, the neoclassical lines and sentimental urns and
willows were the fashion of the day.

Calvin Barber began carving his urn-and-willow motif gravestones
in 1802, the year in which he rendered the baroque carvings for Moses
Case (Simsbury 1794) and Job Case (Simsbury 1798). Undoubtedly
influenced by other Connecticut Valley carvers. Barber cut these grave-
markers with a tympanum shaped by scrolls and reverse curves. Within
the lunette, he carved a round urn flanked by two willow trees. As with
almost all of Barber's urn-and-willow carvings, there are no border dec-
orations, only a slight grooved outline to frame the legend. The lettering

iDe at S AM ITE L H.XYS

Fig. 15 Deacon Samuel Hayes, 1801, Center Cemetery, Granby.

Documented to Calvin Barber. One of about a dozen markers carved

in a baroque urn-and-willow style. Barber's most expensive

sandstone creations.

Stephen Petke

'J .

rIVlr:RobcrtHx)CKhp

1 He V)ay a pxfc-x's'or ofvitd

Vteltoion froni lies ^^'ontlh ,
j andoi-goo'd repart^.^,-, '^

• cije^ui ni: Lord.

■.^'':]A*y'

Fig. 16 Robert Hoskins, 1807, Hopmeadow Cemetery, Simsbury.
Documented to Calvin Barber. An example of Barber's third um-and-

willow style.

22 Gravestones of Calvin Barber

is characteristic of Barber's cherub-faced creations, with block upper-
and lower-case letters for the initial inscription, italicized letters for the
remainder of the epitaph, a fused AD, and full-bellied numerals.

While a few examples can be found with a single urn or with a lone
willow, the vast majority of Calvin Barber's neoclassical gravestones
were carved with both urns and willows in the tympanum. Barber relied
on a fundamental design for his colonial style carvings, but commonly
used three repetitive urn-and-willow designs to suit his or his patron's
taste. The gravestone for Richard Gay (East Granby, 1805, Fig. 14) is one
of Barber's "locket-style" urn-and willow carvings. The central image, a
round urn upon a base with an overhanging willow tree or branch, is
enclosed by a thin oval outline. The Gay stone is embellished with
baroque volutes which extend to the finials.

The Deacon Samuel Hays stone (Granby, 1801, Fig. 15) is one of the
finest examples of Barber's high baroque style of urn-and-willow grave-
markers. Barber carved about a dozen of these fashionable monuments
until 1810, when simpler, cleaner designs became more popular. The
purchasers of Barber's scroll head style of gravestone frequently gave
him specific carving instructions. Simeon Hays asked that the grave-
stone for his father, Samuel, be a "scroll head," while Noble Phelps
requested that the stone for his wife, Fiorina (Simsbury, 1799) be a "scroll
head with a weeping willow." Because of the more complicated and
time-consuming carving, these were among Barber's most expensive
creations, costing around four and one-half pounds.

A third basic urn-and-willow design utilized by Barber can be seen
in the stone carved for Robert Hoskins (Simsbury, 1807, Fig. 16). Here the
round urn is draped by a large willow tree which fills the entire upper
portion of the lunette. The stones that Barber carved for Luther Holcomb
(East Granby, 1809) and Hoel Humphrey (Simsbury, 1808) represent less
elaborate and less expensive versions where the willow tree is far less
intricately carved or is absent altogether. In the case of the Humphrey
stone instructions for a gravestone "with an urn on it" were expressly
given to Calvin Barber. For children. Barber often carved double stones
such as the markers for Nancy and Candice Holcomb (West Granby,
1811) and Henry J. and Harriet Holcomb (North Granby, 1815).

Very few Connecticut Valley burying yards contain gravestones with
Masonic symbols on them. The Amasa Humphrey stone (Simsbury,
1799, Fig. 17) deserves attention both for its striking abundance of

Stephen Petke

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Fig. 17 Captain Amasa Humphrey, 1799, Hopmeadow Cemetery,
Simsbury. Documented to Calvin Barber. An expensive stone with an
elaborate, beautifully executed design that includes an abundance of

Masonic symbols.

Masonic symbols and for its consummate execution. Barber's most skill-
fully carved urn-and-willow motif adorns the tympanum of this monu-
ment, while the vertical and horizontal borders are cut to represent the
two pillars of King Solomon's Temple (symbolizing strength and stabili-
ty) and the tesselated pavement. Within this framework are carved the
sun symbolizing light, the Bible open to the gospel of St. John, the square
and compass representing reason and faith, the all-seeing eye symboliz-
ing watchfulness and the Supreme Being, the moon surrounded by
seven stars denoting the perfect lodge, the plumb rule designating
uprightness, and the level representing equality. The profusion of these
symbols illustrates an emerging emphasis on the commemoration of the
individual and the importance of his earthly behavior and virtues. It
epitomizes the burgeoning rationalization of man's relationship to his
maker, the beginning of a modern world dominated no longer by God,
but by man. The epitaph recounts that Humphrey "possessed a sound
mind and judgement, was cheerful, benevolent and agreeable. In life he

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

Fig. 18 Elisabeth Case, 1808, Dyer Farm Cemetery, Canton.

Documented to Stephen Harrington, who worked for Calvin Barber.

Barber's influence is easily recognized in this stone.

Stephen Petke

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Fig. 19 Hannah Humphreys, 1808, Dyer Farm Cemetery, Canton.

Documented to Henry Harrington, a partner in Calvin Barber's

workshop. The lettering resembles Barber's, but the um-and-willows

are Harrington's.

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

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Fig. 20 Selah Dickenson, 1806, Hopmeadow Cemetery, Simsbury.

Documented to Henry Harrington, who with his brother, Stephen,

became co-owners with Barber of the Barber workshop.

Stephen Petke 27

was beloved and in death lamented." A sheriff for Hartford County and
a successful businessman who owned two houses and two barns,
Humphrey possessed an estate valued at nearly 1,500 pounds/ At seven
pounds, four shillings, his gravestones were the most expensive markers
purchased in Simsbury before 1805. Related to Humphrey by marriage
and by the bonds of the fraternal order. Barber was the logical craftsman
for Humphrey's executors to patronize.

The Barber Shop

Throughout the burying grounds of the Farmington Valley, one occa-
sionally encounters what at first would appear to be one of Barber's vari-
ations on a familiar theme. Closer examination, however, reveals the
hand of other craftsmen influenced or trained by the master. The account
books of Calvin Barber tell us that several of the town's young men were
employed by him to hew and haul stone from the quarries, and, period-
ically, to carve or finish a gravestone. Jared Barber worked for Calvin, as
did Asa and Eden Hays, Zebe Ensign, Friend Noble, James Fletcher and
Horace Bestor. Randall Tuller began his apprenticeship with Calvin
Barber in 1802 but found the task too demanding, as a notice in the
Connecticut Courant recounted:

Runaway from the subscriber, on the evening of the 5th day of February
1809, an indented BOY, to the mason and stone cutting business, named
Randall Tuller, 18 years of age. ..whoever shall return this boy will have
one cent reward.^

Among the first to join Calvin Barber in his stonecutting venture was
Stephen Harrington (1777-1812). Stephen is mentioned in Barber's jour-
nal for hewing the stone that would become the gravemarker for Martha
Pettibone (Simsbury, 1796). He is also credited with completing the
gravestone for Jerucia Tuller (Simsbury, 1798), although it is uncertain
whether he collaborated with Barber in its making. Stephen was paid
$15 for the gravestone for Elizabeth Case (Canton, 1808, Fig. 18).^ The
influence of Barber is easily recognized in this work: the overall shape
and design is comparable to Barber's own style, yet the execution is less
accomplished.

In 1804, Stephen's brother, Henry (1785-1810), joined the Barber shop
not only to extract stone but also to fashion gravestones. Henry cut the
gravestone for Hannah Humphreys (Canton, 1808, Fig. 19), a marker

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

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Fig. 21 Lucy Wilcox, 1806, North Canton Cemetery, North Canton.

Documented to Calvin Barber. One of Barber's rectangular sandstone

markers, of which he made numerous variations from 1810 to 1819.

Stephen Petke 29

whose lettering closely resembles Barber's own, but whose image, with
its diamond-shaped urn and taut willow trees, is Henry's alone. Henry
Harrington was paid $8 for the marker for Selah Dickenson (Simsbury,
1806, Fig. 20), with its spherical urn, fluted columns supporting an arch,
and striped leaves.^" The Harrington brothers would become co-owners,
with Barber, of the "quarry near to the Grist Mills in Hop Meadow," and
would help propel the Barber shop into the nineteenth century. The part-
nership, however, was tragically short-lived. At the young age of 24,
Henry Harrington suddenly died. A distraught Stephen migrated to
Ohio and died there, a victim of the War of 1812.

Sandstone gravestones with no central image

Gradually, Calvin Barber would shift his carving style by moving
away from the neoclassical urn-and-willow as the central image on his
gravestones and toward sUghtly decorated and often undecorated sand-
stone markers. In 1810, the year in which he carved the rectangular sand-
stone marker for Lucy Wilcox (North Canton, 1807, Fig. 21), Barber intro-
duced yet another style of monument to the Farmington Valley. During
the decade from 1810-1819, Barber offered variations of his rectangular
sandstone gravestone. For the gravestone of Elisha Wilcox (Simsbury,
1812), he added scalloped fans at the four corners of the marker. For the
Susannah Phelps stone (Simsbury, 1815), he carved flower petals in the
upper corners. For the gravemarker of Mary Case (Canton, 1817), Barber
engraved the inscription within a low relief circle seemingly held by four
fan-like projections emanating from the corners of the stone. Smaller and
simpler stones could be provided for children at about half the cost of
those for adults. The stone cut for Eliza Prince (Canton, 1817) was one of
the last rectangular sandstone markers that Barber produced. Other inex-
pensive stones for children combined the undecorated style with a tablet
shape or modified bed board shape, such as the stone carved for Wealthy
Case (Simsbury, 1808).

Marble gravestones with no central image

As early as 1796, Calvin Barber was exploring the use of marble as a
new material for his gravestone carvings. It was in that year that
Doctor John Bestor asked Barber to carve the diminutive marble mark-
er for his son, Henry, who had died two years earlier shortly after
being born. As the demand for the pure white, ethereal quality of

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

Fig. 22 Dudley Bestor, 1818, Hopmeadow Cemetery, Simsbury.

Documented to Calvin Barber. An example of Barber's rectangular,

white marble markers.

Stephen Petke

Fig. 23 Caleb, 1816, and Hannah, 1798, Spencer, North Canton

Cemetery, North Canton. Documented to Calvin Barber. About 1815,

Barber began using stencils for lettering and numerals.

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

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Fig. 24 Ruth Griffin, 1810, West Granby Cemetery, West Granby
Documented to Calvin Barber. One of Barber's finest marble stones.

Stephen Petke 33

marble increased. Barber journeyed to West Stockbridge and
Washington, Massachusetts to obtain new stone for his gravestone
carvings. The variations that Barber used in his rectangular sandstone
gravestones he also rendered on marble. Small fan, flower, and shell
shapes at the corners, chamfered edges, and thinly grooved border out-
lines can be found with regularity on Barber's rectangular marble
gravemarkers. Perhaps fittingly, one of the last sparingly decorated rec-
tangular marble gravestones that Calvin fashioned was the large mark-
er for another of Doctor Bestor's unfortunate sons. The stone for
Dudley Bestor (Simsbury, 1813, Fig. 22) marks the grave of a promising
lad who had just completed his collegiate education.

Neoclassical marble gravestones

Marble did not inspire Calvin Barber to create innovative new styles,
yet he was quite capable of carving on both marble and his own indige-
nous sandstone. His urn-and-willow marble gravestones were cut in rec-
tangular, chamfered rectangular, bed board, and classical bed board
shapes. While many of Barber's works on marble were among his most
expensive - the cost of importing the stone being a contributing factor -
Calvin could nonetheless also render a fashionable marble gravestone at
a modest price. The gravestone for Seymour Case (Simsbury, 1812), with
its central urn and curved volutes, was one of a pair carved for the chil-
dren of Amasa Case, Jr.. By limiting the degree of ornate carving in the
lunette and the legend. Barber could produce such a stone for just $3.50.

It was not uncommon that double gravestones for husbands and
wives were ordered. If the wife had died first, and not had a stone erect-
ed, a double marker was often carved for the couple upon the subse-
quent death of the husband. Such was the case with Hannah and Caleb
Spencer (North Canton, 1798 & 1816, Fig. 23). Amos Spencer purchased
the large double stone for his parents from Calvin Barber for $33.00
shortly after his father's death. The chamfered lunette is bifurcated with
an urn and willow tree carved in each half, while the legend is outlined
by a groove with concave corners from which fan-shaped objects radi-
ate. By the middle of the century's second decade. Barber had begun to
employ stencils for some of his lettering, particularly for the names and
dates of the deceased.

Many eighteenth and early nineteenth century Connecticut grave-
stones carved on marble have succumbed to the ravages of New

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

Fig. 25 Lydia Graham, 1802, North Canton Cemetery, North Canton.

Documented to Calvm Barber, Because this stone was toppled and

has rested on the ground face-down, its carving has been better

preserved than that on many marble stones in New England.

Stephen Petke 35

England's weather and pollution, so that a large number are today near-
ly illegible. Few of Barber's marble gravestones have been spared this
fate, but those that have survived the past 200 years provide special
insight into his considerable proficiency in carving on marble. The
gravestones for Ruth Griffin (West Granby, 1810, Fig. 24) and Lydia
Graham (North Canton, 1802, Fig. 25), both completed in 1813, represent
two of Barber's finest marble carvings. The urn and willow cut in the
tympanum of the Griffin stone is as fine as any Barber executed on sand-
stone. The inscription, neatly spaced and confidently etched, is framed
by a delicately beveled outline.

At $48.00, the gravestone that Calvin Barber made for Freeman
Graham's wife, Lydia, was the most expensive from the Barber shop
before 1820, and uncommon circumstances have kept it relatively free
from deterioration. In the lunette of this stone. Barber carved an unusual
collection of mortuary symbols: an urn with a peculiar broad-leafed wil-
low, a scythe, and an hourglass. When searching for this stone, it became
apparent that this was one of the few markers Barber documented in his
account book that is no longer standing. When I did find it lying on the
ground, it seemed ironic to discover that its face-down position had pro-
tected its carved surface from the elements so that it was in unusually
good condition. Now split in half from its collapse, this stone is certainly
worthy of restoration for its importance to Barber's body of work and to
early Connecticut carving.

Unsolved mysteries

The account books of Calvin Barber have allowed me to locate all but
about a dozen of the stones that he made and recorded. But as much as
his records provide invaluable documentation of his body of gravestone
carving, they also present the gravestone scholar with the inevitable
unsolved mysteries that accompany every historical investigation.

In 1802, Campbell Humphrey purchased a gravestone for his brother,
Dudley, for four and one-half pounds. The price would indicate that it
was one of Barber's large baroque-style urn-and-willow sandstone
markers. The only Dudley Humphrey that has been found in written
records as a brother to (Alexander) Campbell Humphrey was the
Dudley who died in Ohio in 1859. A stone for Dudley Humphrey
(Norfolk, 1794) is documented in the deceased's estate papers to
Abraham Codner, who provided a winged cherub marble gravestone in

Gravestones of Calvin Barber

Fig. 26 Calvin Barber, 1846, Hopmeadow Cemetery, Simsbury.
Carver unknown.

Stephen Petke 37

1795 for five pounds, two shillings, four pence." For whom did
Campbell Humphrey buy the expensive gravestone from Calvin Barber,
and where is that stone?

In 1799, Farrend Case married Electra Shepard of Blandford,
Massachusetts. Three years later Case purchased a gravestone from
Calvin Barber for "Mr. Shepard" for two pounds, five shillings, the usual
price for one of Barber's standard cherub-faced sandstone monuments.
Who was the "Mr. Shepard" for whom this stone was acquired and
where is it located? Family genealogies offer only tantalizing clues.^^

The unfortunate Ezra Adams of North Canton, who lost five of his
children before they reached adolescence, bought three small grave-
stones from Calvin Barber in 1809 for $4.50 apiece. Could these have
been the same type of simple, undecorated sandstone markers that are
found in many Farmington Valley burying yards? The stones for the
Adams' children are not in the North Canton yard with an $8 stone pur-
chased that same year for Hannah Adams, 1807. Where are these three
stones, and for which of the Adams children were they carved?i3

During the Revolutionary War, David Goodrich of Chatham was
killed in a violent storm, leaving a wife and a three year old son, David.
Three dozen years later, the younger David, who had married Hilphah
Hayes and moved to Granby, purchased an expensive ($30) marble
gravestone for the father he barely knew. Was this a replacement stone,
or, perhaps, a cenotaph? It is not in any of the Granby burying yards. If
the stone has survived, does it lie in some other Connecticut burying
ground?!*

Conclusion

Though the bulk of Calvin Barber's gravestone carvings are unre-
markable, particularly in comparison to the finest preceding and con-
temporary works from New England's urban centers, they nevertheless
represent a considerable volume of the region's mortuary art carved dur-
ing the first decades of the new nation. Any view of artifacts which
emphasizes the mere beauty of the objects offers an interpretation of his-
tory and heritage that fails to acknowledge the entire spectrum of the
American experience. Without ignoring the contributions made by
extraordinary Americans, we must recognize that ordinary people are
makers of history in their own right. Calvin Barber (see Fig. 26) was an
industrious and shrewd businessman and a conscientious public official.

38 Gravestones of Calvin Barber

He was an accomplished stone mason and a skilled and prolific grave-
stone carver who supplied the residents of the Farmington Valley with
the materials to erect homes for the living and markers for the dead. The
hundreds of gravestones that he placed in the burying yards of
Connecticut's Farmington River towns, complemented by the written
record of his work, have secured a place in history for Calvin Barber.

NOTES

All photographs are by the author.

1. Estate Inventory of Daniel Barber, Simsbury, 1779, Simsbury District File 216, CSL.
Estate Inventory of Jacob Pettibone, Granby, 1807, Simsbury District File 1281,
CSL. Estate Inventory of Isaac Sweetland, Hartford, 1823, Hartford District File
unnumbered, CSL. Lillian May Wilson, ed.. Barber Genealogy (Haverhill, Mass.,
1909), 138-139.

2. Estate Inventory of Calvin Barber, Simsbury, 1846, Simsbury District File 212, CSL.

3. Contract Between Calvin Barber and John Poyson, December 16, 1975, manuscript,
Simsbury Historical Society.

4. Estate Inventory of Elihu Humphrey, Simsbury, 1777, Simsbury District File 1566,
CSL.

5. Frederick Humphreys, The Humphreys Family in America (New York, 1883), 299. Estate
Inventory of Jonathan Humphrey, Simsbury, 1794, Simsbury District File 1594, CSL.

6. Thomas A. Zaniello, "The Keystone of Neoclassicism: Freemasonry and Gravestone
Iconography," Journal of American Culture 3:4 (1980): 581-594.

7. Humphreys, 175. Estate Inventory of Amasa Humphrey, Simsbury, 1799, Simsbury
District File 1530, CSL.

8. Connecticut Courant (April 12, 1809).

9. Estate Inventory of Elisabeth Case, Canton, 1808, Simsbury District File 541, CSL.

10. Estate Inventory of Henry Harrington, Simsbury, 1810, Simsbury District File 1307,
CSL.

11. Humphreys, 143. Estate Inventory of Dudley Humphrey, Norfolk, 1794, Norfolk
District File 384, CSL.

Stephen Petke 39

12. Gerald Faulkner Shepard, The Shepard Families of Neiv England (New Haven, Conn.,
1973), III: 133.

13. Abiel Brown, Genealogical Histon/ With Short Sketches of the Early Settlers of West
Simsburi/ now Canton, Conn. (Hartford, 1856), 9.

14. LaFayette Wallace Case, ed.. The Goodrich Family in America (Chicago, 1889), 96; 166.

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The Chinese of Valhalla

Fig. 1 Jiuh mahn Jung si (Traditional Format).
Typical of flat stones in original section.

The Chinese of Valhalla:
Adaptation and Identity in a Midwestern American Cemetery

C. Fred Blake

People from China have lived in St. Louis, Missouri for almost one
hundred and fifty years, but very little material evidence of their early
settlement and way of life has remained and very little effort has been
made to research their past. One of the iew sources that is both accessible
and rich in evidence is Valhalla, a large suburban cemetery where the
remains of more than two hundred deceased members of the Chinese
community are buried. Visitors to this and other cemeteries have long
been intrigued by what the gravemarkers, inscriptions and engravings
tell about the people who produced them.i Anthropologists, along with
scholars from other disciplines, have extended this interest in systematic
studies aimed at showing how cemeteries express the beliefs, values and
structures of American communities.^ The Chinese gravestones in Val-
halla add yet another case study, if not another dimension, to this tradi-
tion of popular curiosity and scholarly research. The Chinese grave-
stones allow us to see some of the manifold ways in which members of a
Chinese community have attempted to make meaningful their lives and
deaths in the American heartland. This essay focuses on two sets of data:
first is the arrangement and style of gravemarkers, and second is the
inscriptions in Chinese and Roman systems of writing.

Historical Arrangement of Gravestones

Chinese burials in St. Louis began with the eastward migration of
Chinese laborers after 1869.3 With the exception of Ching Foo, whose
remains were embalmed and shipped home in 1873, others who lacked
sufficient funds were buried without ceremony in unmarked graves. The
first recorded ceremony was a Christian service conducted for Wong
You, who died in his Pine Street laundry in the autumn of 1879. His
remains were interred in a section of the Wesleyan Cemetery located on
Olive Street Road, six kilometers west of the city limits.^ This and two
adjacent sections became the site for all subsequent Chinese burials until
the cemetery was closed in 1924.5 During these fifty years the Chinese
community asserted increasing autonomy over the disposition of its
deceased members, first with the help of St. John's M.E. Church, then the

The Chinese of Valhalla

"Chouteau Avenue Church for Chinamen," and finally, around the turn
of the century, the On Leong Tong.^ In 1927, the Wesleyan Cemetery was
razed in the course of changing land use, and the remains of a hundred
Chinese were removed for shipment back to native villages in China 7 I
have found no indication that the Chinese graves in the Wesleyan Ceme-
tery were marked. ^

In 1924, the On Leong Tong purchased a section in Valhalla, a large
non-sectarian cemetery of lightly wooded hills located in the same vicin-
ity as the Wesleyan Cemetery. This section is located on a hilltop at the
northeastern corner of Valhalla. Today it contains thirty-seven square
and rectangular gravestones laid flat in the earth and sandwiched
between a host of mostly upright stones of European- Americans. Figure
1 illustrates the older style of gravestone in this section, whose dates
range from 1924 to 1954. A second section was later opened for Chinese
burials in a lower field between the perimeter road and a creek which
meanders along the southern edge of the cemetery. Unlike the burial plots
in the first section, those in the lower field were purchased piecemeal on
the basis of periodic need.^ The lower field contains 143 flat rectangular
stones laid in twelve rows. They date from 1930 to the present. Figure 2

Fig. 2 Chyuhn-Sauh Leuhnggung mouh (Modified Format). Typical of flat
stones in lower field section.

C. Fred Blake

illustrates one of these stones, which are all rectangular in shape.

Along both sides of the lower road there are thirteen upright grave-
stones with Chinese inscriptions dating from the 1960s. Typical of these
is the Jue family gravestone depicted in Figure 3. These stones mark the
beginning of a new phase in the mortuary practices of the Chinese com-
munity. The upright stones are stylistically heterogeneous and they are
individually situated in ways that blur the spatial boundaries between
Chinese graves and those of their European- American neighbors. Above
the perimeter road in three other sections of the cemetery there are forty-
six Chinese gravemarkers which date from 1970. All but two of these are
standing upright, including two rather elaborate catafalques. These

Fig. 3 Jue Family gravestone. Typical of newer, upright stones
in various sections.

56 The Chinese of Valhalla

graves are situated on increasingly higher ground and in clusters that
join members of the original Szeyap community from south China with
the newer immigrants from other parts of central and eastern China.

The record of Chinese gravemarkers over the past seventy years thus
reflects a structural shift in the Chinese community. The initial act of
marking graves with stones or other impervious materials and inscribing
them in Chinese characters and Roman letters is a de facto claim on per-
manent residence. 10 The rows of uniform flat stones, which are especially
dramatic in the oldest section, where they cut a narrow swath through a
sea of upright markers and monuments belonging to European- Ameri-
cans, mark the graves of individuals who became all but invisible in
response to attempts to exclude them from American society." The
arrangement of these stones reflects only the simple succession of indi-
vidual deaths and the undifferentiated corporate unity of the On Leong
Tong. Although this phase has lasted down to the present day, it has been
truncated by a second phase which continues to gain momentum.

The second phase, which begins with the upright gravestones of the
1960s, reflects a new mode of participation in American society. The
upright stones tend to accommodate the contiguous burial of spouses
and sometimes their unmarried siblings and children. This reflects the
widely reported shift from a "bachelor society" to a "family oriented
society."i2 The upright stones break the previous pattern of uniformity
by exhibiting a variety of styles, sizes, shapes, materials and decor. These
differences express an increasing sense of social differentiation and ris-
ing claims on social status within the Chinese community. But they also
communicate claims on social status beyond the Chinese community,
which is evident in the way that the modest increase in stylistic variation
occurs with the dispersal of gravestones into other parts of the cemetery.
This dispersal begins in earnest after 1970 and reflects the residential dis-
persal of members of the living community from the city to the suburbs
in that decade.i^ The dispersal of gravestones occurs in small clusters of
friends and in-laws that have formed in reference to being "Chinese" in
metropolitan St. Louis rather than in reference to being "Chinese" in the
Old World.

Fragments of Chinese Literacy

The only feature that distinguishes the Chinese gravemarkers from
those of the surrounding European- Americans is the set of inscriptions

C. Fred Blake 57

that employ Chinese writing.i^ The Chinese tradition of Hteracy is the
basis upon which people from China stake their claim to four thousand
years of continuous cultural history. This tradition was sustained, but
only tenuously and with great effort, in the rural villages from which
most of the Valhalla Chinese came. Not all of the earlier immigrants
were literate by Chinese standards. Most could read and write their
native script, but with varying degrees of difficulty.^^ For those who set-
tled in the American heartland, the simple facts of demography prevent-
ed the concentration and reproduction of Chinese literary skills. More-
over, these literary skills, which constituted the core of identity and
success in China, were worth almost nothing in the United States. Thus,
the advent of an American-born-and-educated generation made the
effort to sustain the fragments of this literary tradition all but impossible.
On the other hand, the continuous loss of Chinese literary skills among
descendants of the older immigrants has been augmented by a continu-
ous infusion of literary skills into the community by newer immigrants.
Thus, the literary skill invested in the Chinese gravestone inscriptions in
Valhalla has remained relatively high. In fact, closer scrutiny might
show that the literary quality of the Chinese inscriptions, when mea-
sured against traditional standards, has actually improved with the pas-
sage of time. This is due to the increased educational and economic lev-
els of many newer Chinese immigrants.

The inscriptions in Chinese are ordinarily written by a close friend,
an in-law, a member of the immediate family, such as a son or grandson,
or even the deceased himself. The inscription on the large upright grave-
stone of Yee Wing Kee, according to an appendant phrase, is "written by
the person in the grave." Self-inscription becomes necessary for those
who take pride in the tradition of Chinese literacy but who do not
depend on their American-educated children to provide. Other signa-
tures, of which there are only a few, claim the credit for "erecting" the
gravestone, and not necessarily for the elegance of the inscription. These
bear the signature of a son or "first son," but one is signed, "devoted
friend," and followed by the name of an African-American woman. The
inscriptions thus display a range of literary talents within the Chinese
community.

The characters inscribed on the gravestones can be divided between
those that achieve some degree of balance and proportion, which is the
hallmark of Chinese calligraphy, and those that convey their own sense

The Chinese of Valhalla

:^A

MRS. CHAN S:

-1975

Fig. 4 Leuhng Yik-Laahn fuh-yahn mouh (Modem/Western Format).

of vitality in more unconventional n^odes of the written word.^^ The first
group can be further divided into the traditional types and styles of cal-
ligraphy. For instance, in the first group we find an archaic zhuanshu or
"seal type" inscription on an upright slab of polished black granite. This
stylized form of print, which developed from the earliest forms of Chi-
nese writing, marks the grave of Ting Cheuk Lam. Another example
from this group is Lishii, a square plain form of print first developed by
clerks of the Han dynasty. Elements of Lishu are found on a catafalque
belonging to the Chen family. A Lishii style is also in evidence on the
humble gravestone of Yee Ming, especially where the side strokes in
each character are elongated {baifen style) to increase the sense of "bal-
ance." But the vast majority of the Chinese inscriptions in this first group
employ kaishu, the "regular" block print form that allows increased lati-
tudes for self-expression. Compare, for instance, the supple characters
that form Leuhng Yik-Laahn's name in Figure 4 with the turgid, almost
earthy characters in Cheuhng-Kwing Leih's name in Figure 5 and the
deliberate and measured characters in Jiuh Fun-Jeuk's name in Figure 11.
Several inscriptions, for example Eng Hong's inscription in Figure 6,
employ some of the formulaic elements of songti [Song dynasty type-
face] to create an increased sense of precision and personal detach-
ment.i^ Others move in the opposite direction by quickening the motion
of the brush into a single continuous flow interrupted only by the sue-

C. Fred Blake

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Fig. 5 Cheuhng-Kwing Leih gung mouh (Integrated Format).

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Fig. 6 Ngh giing Bak-Hahng mouh (Sinicized Format).

cession of characters. At this point the style shifts into a more sponta-
neous "running hand/' or xingshu. The gravestone inscriptions exhibit
only a few halting attempts at xingshu style. One of these can be seen in
Figure 7, where the characters that inscribe Pang Lew's name alternate
between a kind of "walking" knishu and "running" xingshul ^^

The second group of Chinese inscriptions includes characters that are
easy to read but do not adhere to traditional standards of calligraphic

The Chinese of Valhalla

writing. Insofar as these characters are cut into stone and mark the
graves of the next of kin, we must assume that they are invested with a
high degree of sincerity. This being the case, these inscriptions make the
fundamental point that "our Chineseness is disclosed in our language —
no matter how it may be written." There is less concern here with
appearances ("face-saving") and more concern with the substance of the

PANG LEW

ti i\ ii // 4 1

JAN. 8, 1888 — MAR. 13. 1961 '

Fig. 7 Liuh gung Liht-Pihn mouh (Segregated Fonnat).

•^ SENG CHIU

Fig. 8 King-ngoi dik Fu-chan, Jiuh Sihng (ModemAVestem Fonnat).

C. Fred Blake

expression. An especially poignant example of this proposition is the
inscription on the marker for Seng Chiu seen in Figure 8. Here the sig-
nificance of the script is in the content of the phrase, king-ngoi dikfu-chan
[Respected and Loved Father] rather than in the rough and ready hand
that produced it. This is not only a traditional literary expression,
embedded in a modern format (to be discussed later), but it is one of the
rare expressions of affection on the Chinese gravestones in Valhalla.

Another example is the inscription of Chinese characters found on
the stone marking the grave of an American woman of African descent
named Juanita Chin (see Fig. 17). The Chinese inscription transcribes her
given name, Wahn-ne-douh, and implies with the word niuh-si that she
was not married to the man whose Romanized surname her gravestone
bears (to be discussed later). Here again, the significance of the inscrip-
tion is not in the elegance of the hand that wrote it, but rather in the insis-
tence that this American woman of African descent have her name not
just inscribed on a stone, but inscribed in Chinese, and that she thus be
included in the memory bank of the old community.

A residual category of literacy might include mistakes in writing the
character or cutting it into the stone. Common mistakes can be found in
several characters missing simple strokes. The more glaring mistakes are
due to misunderstandings between the (European- American) stonecut-

Fig. 9 Gravestone of Jim Leong. The horizontal Chinese script is
upside down and backwards.

62 The Chinese of Valhalla

ter and his (Chinese- American) customer. Lacking knowledge of Chi-
nese, the stonecutter depends on his customer to supply a pattern scaled
to the exact size and shape of the figures to be cut. With pattern in hand,
the stonecutter exhibits a keen technical ability to cut the minutiae of
each character, especially when he cuts the Chinese name inscription
sideways on Yee Ming's gravestone, or upside down and backwards on
Jim Leong's gravestone (Fig. 9).

This residual category might also include characters that appear to
be mistakes but may in fact be intentional manipulations of the iconic
and literary conventions. For example, a given name on Huie Wing's
gravestone adds the "heart" radical to the character for "laughing." The
character is written with the same clarity and self-confidence as is evi-
dent in the rest of the inscription, but it can not be found in a dictionary.
This suggests that Huie Wing's given name belongs entirely to the spo-
ken vernacular. In order to inscribe it, therefore, a special graph has been
fashioned out of the phonetic and semantic resources of the literary lan-
guage.i^ Another apparent mistake, when seen in the overall text of the
stone, turns out to be an intentional act of ritual prophylaxis - or "super-
stition." In instances where one spouse precedes the other to their com-
mon resting place, the gravestone is frequently inscribed with both their
names. This creates a potentially dangerous paradox in which the sur-
viving spouse is written down as already dead. One set of inscriptions
on a married couple's gravestone protects the surviving husband by
manipulating the representational function of the icon. The "grass" rad-
ical that caps the character for "grave" in the husband's name inscription
is simply deleted. The incomplete icon - the "sun" radical perched
above the "earth" radical but minus the "grass" radical - is not a mis-
take, but rather a graphic expression that "the grass under your feet does
not grow on my grave!"

Taken in its entirety, the corpus of Chinese inscriptions expresses a
four thousand years old tradition of literacy that has been transported
from towns and villages in China and individually reproduced in Mis-
souri lime and sandstone, granite, marble and bronze. This work exhibits
a remarkable variety of conventional types and individual styles, and it
is the work of ordinary persons - of laundrymen, cooks, and clerks, and
of engineers, architects, and businessmen, each with a different and
sometimes shifting cultural experience, orientation, commitment, and
skill, and each with a sense of pride and efficacy in his work.

C. Fred Blake 63

Chinese Inscriptions^o

There are three basic categories of information encoded on most of
the gravestones: A name for the deceased, the name of a native place in
China, and a death date. Most of the names and dates in Chinese script
are placed in conventional phrases that indicate that this is the grave of so
'n' so, that he or she was a native of such 'n' such a place, and that he or
she passed away on the date indicated. This has the effect of structuring
the string of words and increasing the control over the direction for read-
ing them. This effect is most apparent in the names that are inscribed on
a horizontal plane. In the absence of a phrase, a name like Chyuhn Sauh
Leiihng in Figure 2 may be read from the right side or from the left side
and it may be read with the given name first, as indicated above or with
the surname first as Leuhng Sauh Chyuhn?-^ By placing the name in an
objective phrase, Chyuhn Sauh Leuhng gung mouh [the grave (mouh) of the
honorable igung) Chuyhn Sauh Leuhng], the name is read in its intended
direction and syntax.

The names thus inscribed exhibit four distinct variations based on
the different permutations of horizontal direction and syntax. These four
ways of inscribing names may be interpreted as common sense strategies
for mediating the hermeneutical problems that arise when writing Chi-
nese in a Western cultural context. These strategies are defined in the
two-dimensional matrix of Table 1. The "traditional" strategy begins
with the surname on the right side of the stone as shown in Figures 6 and
7. A clear majority of names inscribed on the horizontal plane employs
this strategy. This percentage is much higher on stones dating from the
first two decades of the Chinese in Valhalla.

The second strategy "modifies" the tradition by placing the given
name on the right side, as in Figure 2. This has the effect of placing the
surname, somewhat unexpectedly, in the middle of the script. It com-
bines the traditional direction of reading Chinese scripts with the West-
ern preference for placing the given name in front of the surname. The
modified script thus fuses a sense of direction which is Chinese with a
sense of individual preeminence which may be attributed to its Ameri-
can context. Twenty-eight percent of the names inscribed horizontally
are modified in this way. The first appearance of a modified name is on a
stone dating from 1929, and by the 1950s it is almost as popular as the
traditional inscription.

The least popular strategy is to "modernize" the inscription by writ-

The Chinese of Valhalla

ing the surname on the left side of the stone, as depicted in Figure 4. This
strategy reverses the direction of the script while giving priority to the
Chinese surname. That is to say, it preserves the Chinese syntax but
changes the direction in which it is read. Reversing the direction of the
script while keeping the syntax Chinese became popular in China as the
"modern" way to write after 1950. This was a conscious strategy by
which the Communist Party put into daily praxis its project to save China
by changing its direction with respect to the Western world. Thus, the
various configurations of direction and syntax signify not only cultural
orientations but also political and ideological commitments.

The fourth strategy is to "Westernize" the name by inscribing the
given name on the left. If this is a logical alternative, it seems to be unac-
ceptable in view of the fact that we find no examples on the Chinese
gravestones in Valhalla. The rule is sufficiently ingrained that even
names inscribed without the benefit of a phrase, such as Jiuh Fun-Jeuk in
Figure 11, would not be read as "Jenk-Fun Jiuh." The Chinese inscriptions
may be "modified" or "modernized," but they may not be "Western-
ized." In other words, if preeminence is given to the individual name
then it must take the form of modifying the Chinese syntax while resist-
ing the directional bias of Western culture; or if the direction is reversed,
then the syntax must be preserved. These relationships are of consider-

SCRIPT BEGINS

with

SURNAME

RIGHT SIDE

Traditional
62%

LEFT SIDE

Modern

10%

GIVEN NAME

Modified
28%

Western

Table 1 Strategies for Inscribing Chinese Scripts
on American Gravemarkers

C. Fred Blake 65

able importance to persons who seek to retain a coherent identity while
endeavoring to restructure and adapt their traditions.

Up until now I have referred to inscriptions of personal names writ-
ten on a horizontal plane. However, many inscriptions are written verti-
cally. This includes most of the personal names inscribed on upright
stones and virtually all the place names and death dates inscribed on
both upright and flat stones. The inscriptions that are placed on the ver-
tical plane accommodate only the traditional and the modified forms for
the simple reason that there is no convention in either culture for reading
a script from the bottom to the top. However, among the hundreds of
vertical inscriptions on the Chinese gravemarkers in Valhalla, only two
modify the traditional syntax by placing the exclusive given name above
the inclusive surname (see Fig. 16).

Native place names and death dates are as a rule written vertically on
the right and left edges respectively of both flat and upright markers.^^
Each begins with the larger inclusive unit, the name of the native
province or the year of death, and each ends with the smaller exclusive
unit, the name of the natal village or the hour of death. The text of the
stone thus moves fron\ right to left, from birth to death, and from begin-
ning to end, with the name in between. The sense of the text as a whole
is traditional, but a tradition that is not without profound disruptions.
This process of mediating disturbances in the tradition intensifies as we
move from the Chinese to the Roman system of writing.

Roman and Arabic Transcriptions

Although most of the information in the basic categories is written in
Chinese characters, many names and dates for the deceased are also
inscribed in ordinary Roman letters and Arabic numbers. The use of two
culturally distinct writing systems in the same text creates additional
disturbances. Of these there are two: one is the occasional inconsistency
between death dates written in Chinese and dates written in Roman-
Arabic scripts. These usually indicate differences between the lunar and
the Gregorian calendars.23 The other disruptions include the pervasive
differences between personal names. The principal means of mediating
these differences is transcription, which involves writing Chinese names
in Roman script. The first task is to mediate the syntax of names, and,
again, we find that there are four common sense strategies which can be
defined in the two-dimensional matrix of Table 2.^4

The Chinese of Valhalla

ROMAN SCRIPT

CHINESE SYNTAX

O CHINESE SYNTAX

CO
LU

Sinicization
40%

WESTERN SYNTAX

Segregation
33%

WESTERN SYNTAX

Integration
21%

Westernization
7%

Table 2 Strategies for Inscribing Name Phrases in
Chinese and Roman Scripts

The most popular strategy is to "sinicize" the syntax of the Roman-
ized name by writing the surname in front of the given name in confor-
mity with the syntax of the Chinese script below (see Fig. 6). The accom-
modation of "American culture" in the form of a Roman script is thus
accomplished in keeping with Chinese rules. However, as we shall see,
when a name in Chinese like Ngh Bak-Hahng is rendered into a parallel
Roman script as "Eng Hong," the given name, "Hong," often becomes
the American surname.

Next in popularity is to "segregate" the rules that generate the two
scripts each according to its own cultural convention and sensibility. The
Chinese name in Figure 10 is written according to Chinese syntax, while
the name in Roman letters, which in this case happens to be a highly
modified transcription of the Chinese name, is written according to
Western syntax.

A third strategy is to "integrate" the rules of syntax. The Western rule
is used to write the name in Chinese script and the Chinese rule is used to
write the same name in Roman script. In Figure 5, Lee Chong Quin's
gravestone inscription in Roman letters conforms to the Chinese rule of
placing the surname, "Lee," before the given name, "Chong Quin," while
the same name in Chinese script, Cheuhng-Kwing Leih is written in a mod-
ified format with the given name, Cheuhng-Kwing before the surname,
Leih. This strategy uses the literary resources of the two cultures to create
a cultural synthesis and thus a sense of congruence.

C. Fred Blake

The last and least utilized strategy is to write the Chinese name in
both scripts according to the Western rule of syntax. That is to say, the
Romanized name is written according to the convention of Western
usage, for example "Wee Wo Lee" (where "Lee" is the surname), and the
name in Chinese script is written in a modified form, for example Waih-
Woh Leih (where Leih is the surname). ^s This strategy, along with the seg-
regated scripts (e.g. in Fig. 10), is strongly associated with the tendency
to inscribe American (given) names above the inscriptions of Chinese
names. The next logical step is to dispense with the Chinese inscription
altogether, and this we find on twenty gravestones marked only with
Romanized names, for example, "George Sunn," "Gim Y. Chiu," and
"Jack G. Jue" (see Fig. 13).

Another point of mediation between the two systems of writing sur-
rounds the inscription of different names on the same stone. Many men
possess more than one set of Chinese names. These may include a boy-
hood name, a school name, a nickname, a married name, a business
name, and a paper name.^^ As several of the figures illustrate, the grave-
stones frequently inscribe one set of names in Chinese characters and
another set or combination thereof in Roman letters. However, the given
name in Roman script is more often an ordinary American name. For
instance. Figure 10 shows a stone inscribed with the American name
"Jim But." Below this in parentheses is another name which combines an

JIM BUT

(THOMAS CHAO)

DF.C. 1904 ~ NOV. 1973 /^-^ |

m^'i

Fig. 10 ]iuh gung Si-Bahtji mouh (Segregated Format).

The Chinese of Valhalla

:iai^--»>: . :miiM^t&is.i^^"mm-'^')m^m^

in \^

«yrSl

JF.¥ [K

1871 - 1955

Fig. 11 /iM/r Fun-Jeuk (Sinicized Format).

'Mil

iUEWIK/^S^

Fig. 12 Jiuh gung Fun-Jeuk mouh (Traditional Format)

American given name, "Thomas," with the Chinese surname, "Chao."
This parenthetical name preserves the Chinese surname in a Western
syntax along with its sound (Zhao) in the national language. However,

C. Fred Blake 69

the name in Chinese characters is inscribed in a traditional format, and
when it is spoken according to its sound in the native Cantonese vernac-
ular, Jiuh Sih-Baht, it provides the initial "J" in the surname Jiuh and the
second word in the given name Baht for the all-American name, "Jim
But." The conversion of Chinese names from the Chinese script into
American paper names in Roman script, of Jiuh Baht into Jim But, for
example, had certain practical advantages. It created a coherent set of
personal identities in a life world that was torn by cultural differences
and racial hostility.

On the other hand, these same conditions, which resulted in sixty
years of official exclusion from 1882 to 1943, constrained others to
change their names entirely Many would-be immigrants with no legal
means for entering the United States purchased their paper names from
families who enjoyed legal residence. This "slot racket," as it was some-
times called, consisted of a man with legal residence selling a place in his
family genealogy to a neighboring villager. The bearers of these illegal
papers were known as "paper sons;" and as illegal residents of the Unit-
ed States they were denied any opportunity to acknowledge their true
paternity for fear of discovery and deportation. Some gravestones in Val-
halla bear the evidence from this difficult chapter in Chinese-American
history. These stones have two Chinese surnames. One is the paper sur-
name in Roman letters and the other is the ancestral surname in Chinese
characters. The gravestone thus makes it possible for a person to finally
acknowledge his true ancestry but in so doing also to reveal to the world
what was once the most closely guarded secret of the Chinese communi-
ty. The Chinese gravestone inscriptions are significant precisely because
they preserve, as in no other public record, the complex structure of per-
sonal identities by which means members of the old-time community
mediated the sociocultural boundaries and legal restrictions that they
encountered in their daily struggle to make ends meet.

The process of Romanizing names to conform to sounds that are
familiar to American ears, of converting Ngh Hahng into Eng Hong, for
example, entails other considerations which are clearly expressed on the
gravestones. For example, the Romanized name tends to avoid configur-
ing letters in a way that suggests an identity in American culture that is
provocative or otherwise unwarranted. In Valhalla, the surname Jiuh is
Romanized nine different ways.^^ These include one surname written
with the letters "J-e-w" on the flat gravestone in Figure 11. The same

The Chinese of Valhalla

grave is marked by an upright stone of later vintage which fuses the sur-
name with the given name "I-k," thus creating an entirely different
American surname, "]ewik," for the deceased and his posterity, as
depicted in Figure 12.

However, I would hasten to add that this attempt to avoid unwar-
ranted associations does not cover warranted associations such as
engravings of the Mosaic Tablets, the Mogen David, the Torah and the
menorah (candelabrum). These Judaic symbols are found on two
upright stones marking the graves of Dang Sei-Chih, an immigrant from
Guangdong, and Dr. Jack G. Jue, a native-born St. Louisan.^s The config-
uration of symbols on Dr. Jue's gravestone in Figure 13 is one of the most
elegant religious motifs in the Chinese sections of Valhalla.^'

These are some of the ways that disruptions in personal identities are
mediated between the two cultures. One principle of mediation that is

''if'

JACK G. JUE PhD.

Fig. 13 Gravestone of Dr. Jack G. Jue.
Note Romanized name and use of Judaic symbols.

r<i

C. Fred Blake 71

common to all the inscriptions, however, is the use of Roman letters to
transcribe, but not to translate, Chinese names.^o

The Index of Women's Names and the Changing Constructs of
Female Identity^i

Chinese women do not possess the multiplicity of given names that
men traditionally possess. ^2 Instead, they possess a multiplicity of sur-
names. In the Old World village tradition a married woman is known
by the surnames of her father and her husband. This tradition is
expressed on many of the gravestones in Chinese Valhalla. The oldest
gravestone for a woman, dated 1928, is shown in Figure 1. The inscrip-
tion reads Jiuh malm Jung si [a Jung married to a Jiuh]. Her inscription
gives no clue to who she was as an individual person. Jiuh and Jung are
surnames; mahn [doorway] and si [nativity] are signifiers for the mar-
ried and maiden names respectively. The maiden name together with
its signifier, Jung-si, tal<:es the place of her given name. When these
names are Romanized and converted into paper names they follow the
spoken version, which deletes the signifier for the married name. The
Romanized name often follows the Western syntax, as in Figure 4: the
maiden name "Chan," plus its signifier "See," comes before the married
name "Leong." The same stone records a Chinese given name, Yihk-
Laahn [abundant orchids]. However, this name is inscribed on the hus-
band's gravestone in another section of the cemetery, and thus refers to
him. What is more, the native place name boldly inscribed across the
top of the woman's stone typically refers to her husband's village. It is
interesting that the content of this woman's identity is constructed
entirely according to Old World village traditions, but it is inscribed in
a Western and modern format.

Although most inscriptions identify a woman by the link between
her maiden and married names, there is, in fact, an emerging tradition of
genuine given names. The earliest inscription of a given name is on a
1942 gravestone belonging to a young married woman named "L.
Mary" (see Fig. 14). However, the given name is an American name and
it is placed, according to Chinese syntax, after the initial "L," which
stands for her married and maiden names. These are inscribed below as
Lahm mahn Leuhng si [a Leuhng married to a Lahm].

Most of the earliest inscriptions of given names are found on the
gravestones belonging to young or unmarried women, and even to

72 The Chinese of Valhalla

i ■

4' -f^

I .:r

Fig. 14 Lahm mahm Leuhng si mouh (Sinicized Format)

female infants. However, marking the graves of unmarried females
entailed a radical break from the mortuary practice of the Old World vil-
lagers The grave of little Wohng Guk-Ying / Charlotte Wong, who was
less than a year old when she passed away in 1945, is the most poignant
example. She is buried not only in a marked grave, but a grave marked
with a stone that bears her given names in Chinese and American and,
even more telling, a grave that has continued to receive the devotion of
visitors bearing springtime bouquets and white floral crosses for almost
half a century (the white floral cross can be seen standing in the field of
flat gravestones to the right and rear of the Jue family gravemarker illus-
trated in Figure 3.)

Marking the graves of unmarried females required an additional
accommodation, that of using a given name in the absence of a married
name. Marking her grave with her given name suggests that the unmar-
ried female is recognized as an individual person in the public domain
of gravestone inscriptions. These fundamental shifts in traditional mor-
tuary practice created a precedent that has been extended to include the
gravestone inscriptions of married women.

The first appearance of a married woman's Chinese name is on a
Leong family gravestone that dates from 1968 (see Fig. 15). The name,
"Lee Chung," is written in Roman letters. This is followed by another
stone dated three years later that gives the woman's name in Chinese
characters. The inscription begins with her married and maiden names.

C. Fred Blake

LEONG

T^" FATHER

TOY

MAY 17. 1887
NOV. 8. W65

vir *" tli^toy^*..- ' ■••'* '

MOTHER

LEE CHUNG

'AUG. 4., 1897
DEC. 8, 1968

Fig. 15 Leong Family gravestone. Illustrates changing patterns of
denoting names of married women.

Yuh Chnhn, then her given name, Meih-Wahn, followed by the term for
wife, fuh-yahn. In the past two decades the use of Chinese characters to
inscribe woman's given names has become increasingly popular.

The most recent precedent in this evolving microcosm of name
inscriptions is found on two gravestones dating from 1986. The name
inscriptions, which follow a modified vertical format, include only the
woman's given and maiden names. For example, the gravestone inscrip-
tion in Figure 16 shows the woman's title Tsou-bi [ancestral deceased
mother] followed by her given name, Tsui-sieng, and then her maiden
name. Bung. Significantly, no married name is included in her inscrip-
tion. Her marital status can be inferred from her title Tsou-bi [ancestral
mother] and from the inscription of her surviving husband's surname,
Lee, in bold Roman letters at the bottom of the stone.^^

The Chinese of Valhalla

The changing tradition of inscribing the names of women is still
encumbered with certain practical problems, however. Survivors of
deceased women, especially members of a lower generation, may not
know the given name of their mother or grandmother and others may
have forgotten the name.^^ Recently, a woman of very respectable age
passed away. Her surviving relatives including her son could not recall
her given name. Her gravestone is marked only with surnames, but in
this case with three different surnames, not the usual two. These include
her maiden and married names in Chinese script and a paper surname
in Roman letters.

The gravestones in Valhalla thus reflect changes in the way women's
personal identities are publicly constructed. One aspect of this tradition
that remains invariant is the attachment of relationship terms to the
woman's name. Whether the name is a coupled surname or includes her
given name, a relationship term is always part of the married woman's
name phrase. The two most frequent relationship terms are moh [moth-
er] and fiih-yahn [married woman or Mrs.]. Two others include a modern
term, ngoi-jai [beloved wife], and a classical literary term, on-yahn [wife
of imperial rank]. Several names are followed by the term niuh-si ["mis-

Fig. 16 Tsou-bi Tsui-sieng Bung si mo (Modified Format)

C. Fred Blake

tress" in the positive sense of the word, or Ms.], which is a traditional
title of respect for a woman whose marital status is otherwise indetermi-
nate. This term is found on three gravestones belonging to a Chinese, a
European and an African-American woman. Figure 17 shows the stone
marking the grave of Juanita Chin, an American woman of African
descent. The inscription indicates her married name, "Chin," in Roman
letters and an altogether different construct, Wahn-ne-douh niuh-si [mis-
tress Wahn-ne-douh], in the Chinese script. The contrasting constructs
reflect culturally appropriate, if also socially expedient, definitions of a
relationship that is fraught with a legacy of social stigmas and legal
sanctions.36

These are the principal precedents for the inscriptions of women's
names within the Valhalla population. Although we are looking at a fair-
ly small sample over a short period of seventy years, we can neverthe-
less discern a tradition that increasingly identifies women as persons in
their own right. This begins with the use of American names for the
American-born and the inclusion of unmarried females, notably female
infants, in the memory bank of the community. This is followed by the
use of Chinese names, first in Roman script and then in Chinese script.
Thus, a process that is encouraged, if not precipitated, by the American
experience becomes increasingly informed by the symbolic resources of
Chinese culture. There is even precedent for redefining the semantic
function of the maiden name. Originally used to dignify an alliance

WMM

Jt£-sVi«a!

"^'S^^ai*^

...

'^:'-y-

^c\

'^/>

I '

1^ -
■ >

-r

■ x^

tr J^r 'ir '^' -<, /

^rT

UANITA CfilN

Fig. 17 Wahn-ne-douh niuh-si mouh (Segregated Format)

76 The Chinese of Valhalla

between male descent groups, the maiden name may increasingly signi-
fy a woman's ownership of her own being.

The Index of men's Names and the Reconstruction of the Old Community

The casual visitor to the Chinese graves perceives only the rows of
gravestones laid in order of death dates and the recent extensions of the
more heterogeneous upright stones into other parts of the cemetery.
However, most markers inscribe a set of names that have structural sig-
nificance and that are available in no other public domain. The grave-
stone inscriptions are crucial in our attempt to study the history of the
old Chinese community. When the names of persons and places are sys-
tematically collected and sorted, they generate a structure of references
to the historical community. These hypothetical structures can be tested,
modified, and augmented by the results of other research procedures. I
will limit my remarks to the data from the gravestones that represent the
older Szeyap community.

We have already noted how the simple arrangement of the grave-
stones reflects the overall structure of relationships under the On Leong
Tong. Within this corporate structure there are three other general points
of identity that oriented social relationships of the men in the old com-
munity. These are surname, first given name, and native place. There are
twenty-two surnames listed on the gravemarkers of the original com-
munity. However, three of these surnames, Leuhng, Leih, and Jiuh repre-
sent forty-five percent of the post-mortem population; and from other
data we know that they provided the demographic basis for organizing
influence in the old community.

The names of native places inscribed on the gravemarkers refer to
fifty-four villages situated in each of four neighboring counties that form
the western edge of the Canton Delta.^^ The four counties are Hoi-pihng,
Toi-saan, Hok-saan, and San-wui?^ Among these the largest number of ref-
erences are to fourteen villages surrounding the market town of Gu-jeng,
in the center of San-wni county.

The index of place names correlates closely with the index of sur-
names. Thus, two of the principal surnames belong to two different vil-
lages around Gu-jeng, while the large Leih [Lee] group belongs to a rural
district in Toi-saan. The largest surname group in the cemetery, Leuhng
[Leong], is almost evenly divided between villages in San-wui county
and the neighboring county of Hok-saan. In fact, the San-wui and Hok-

C. Fred Blake 77

saan county Leongs constituted the two branches of the now defunct
Jung-haau-tohng, i.e. the Leong Surname Association of St. Louis. ^^ Thus,
the Leong men of Gu-jeng were strategically situated in the St. Louis Chi-
nese community. Within the St. Louis community they could draw on
two networks of social support and political influence, one from
alliances with other surname groups in their own marketing and mar-
riage network,^" the other from an alliance based on a surname shared
with men from a neighboring county.

When we sort the index of surnames and native places by first given
names, which we have compiled from the gravestones, we get a more
focused view of actual descent groups.^i This is based on the cultural
assumption that the shared first name from the same descent group
(which is indicated by a surname linked to a particular native place) rep-
resents the married individual's affiliation with a particular generation of
collateral kinsmen. In our corpus of first names we find eighteen possible
cohorts, two of which form significant clusters. The two significant clus-
ters are associated with the two branches of the Leong surname group in
St. Louis. The first cluster includes the Leongs from San-wui county. The
second cluster includes the Leongs from Hok-saaii county.

We may verify the corporate status of these clusters and place each
individual in his respective generation by sorting the names according
to a "poem" which the descent groups possess as a means to name the
married men in each generation. Each word in the poem provides the
married men of each generation with a common first name. That is to
say, when a male member of the descent group is married he takes as his
first given name a word that is dictated by the sequence of words in a
poem composed by his ancestors.^^ i ^^s fortunate to elicit several of
these poems from elders of the community who were still able to recite
them. However, when I compared the two clusters of "generational
names" that I compiled from Leong gravestones with the two poems
that 1 elicited from elders of the two former branches of the Leong Asso-
ciation, I found an anomaly. "Generational names" compiled from the
Hoh-chyun market gravestones follow the poem of the Leongs from the
neighboring county of Hok-saan and not the Leongs from their own
county of San-wui^^ When I re-sorted the corpus of Leong gravestone
names on the basis of the different poems, 1 resolved the anomaly in my
research procedure, but I then encountered two additional anomalies
located in the historical social structure itself!

78 The Chinese of Valhalla

While the San-wui cluster includes the men of the eleventh, or jeuhng
generation of Gii-jeng market, the Hok-saan cluster includes men with
married names from five generations of a network extending from Hoh-
chyun market in San-wui across the county line to Haahp-tuhng market in
Hok-saan A* The first anomaly is not uncommon: the men whose married
names linked them to five consecutive generations in the same descent
group lived and worked together in St. Louis. In fact, we can see from
the dates inscribed on the gravestones that some members of the older
generations were actually younger in chronological age than some mem-
bers of the more recent generations! This anomaly can be explained on
the basis of differential rates of reproduction in a large and, in this case,
dispersed descent group.^s

The second anomaly entails a unique contradiction between the de
facto and the dejiire native place identity of the Hoh-chyun sub-segment of
the Leong Surname Association (see Table 3). The Hoh-chyun segment
resides in San-wui county, but is the senior segment of the more populous
Hok-saan county descent group.^^ In other words, the identity of the Hok-
saan Leongs is divided; and it is the Hoh-chyun people who confound the
distinction between the two descent groups that made up the two legs of
the Association. In the historical community, this "confusion" was dealt
with on at least two levels of highly reflexive social action. The first was in
the origin stories of the Hok-saan Leongs that explained how they became
known as the "Double Leongs."*^ The second was in the way that persons
from Hoh-chyun were singled out in the old community as objects of local
humor.48 In fact, this sense of humor (which was expressed in the form of
"moron jokes") is evident on the gravestone depicted in Figure 9, where
the characters are turned upside down and backwards. This at least
enables the deceased to read his own name, it could be reasoned, which
then challenges our common sense that gravestone inscriptions are for
the living, not the dead! Of course, it may only be mere coincidence that
the native place inscribed along the edge of this gravestone is Bak-miu, a
village in Hoh-chyun.

Although we have begun to move our attention from the material
culture of gravestones to the reflexive folklore of origin myths and local
humor, it was questions that I posed in the original analysis of the grave-
stone inscriptions that led to the present insights. The gravestones in
Valhalla thus provide an important key in our endeavor to reconstruct
the old Chinese community of St. Louis.

C. Fred Blake

LEUHNG-SI JUNG-CHAN JUNG-HAAU-TOHNG
[Leong Surname Association of St. Louis]

San-wui

Hok-saan

Gu-jeng
"Single Leong"

Hoh-chyun Haahp-tuhng

"Double Leong"

Table 3 The Regional Structure of the Leong Surname Association

Conclusion

Although the scope of my inquiry is confined to the modest grave-
stones of Chinese Valhalla, we can see a complex process in which the
symbolic resources of two literate civilizations are inscribed together on
the same slabs of stone. The process of fusing these horizons of cultural
meaning entails a variety of cross-cultural strategies aimed at making
Chinese identities meaningful in the American heartland. The process of
fusing horizons of cultural meaning occurs in a more or less organized
and coherent way if not in a uniform way, and certainly not in a way that
mechanically substitutes one culture for another. There is indicated in
these stones an unfolding of Chinese traditions in which horizons of
meaning are preserved, disrupted, modified, reinterpreted, and mod-
ernized in ways that contradict, resist, recognize, accommodate, and
enrich the American culture. Whether the patterns we have observed are
unique to a particular locality or region in the American heartland is left
open to further comparative research.

The gravestones and their inscriptions are also ostensive points of
reference to a world that is embedded in a particular time and place. The
Valhalla gravestone inscriptions index and store the historical features of
a past that exists in both subjective and objective forms. For the descen-
dants of Chinese in St. Louis, the historical features which the grave-
stones index exist in the subjectivity of scattered anecdotes and faded

80 The Chinese of Valhalla

memories. But when we assemble and sort this index we grasp the fea-
tures of structure and scale in their objective form. As we "flesh out"
these objective features of structure and scale we encounter anomolies
that provoke additional questions, probe ever deeper and recall with
increased cognitive acuity the shadowy remains of a deceased communi-
ty. In this way, we continue the task of appropriating the past to serve the
historical needs of the present.

NOTES

All photographs are by the author.

1 . See, for example, "Among the Dead, Bellefontaine Cemetery as It is Seen on Sunday:
The Beauties and Attractions of the Silent City," St. Louis Post Dispatch (July 8, 1878).

2. W. Lloyd Warner, The Living and the Dead (New Haven, 1959), 280-320; Frank W.
Young, "Graveyards and social structure," Rural Sociology 25 (1960): 446-450; James
Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten: The Archaeologi/ of Early American Life (Garden City,
New York, 1977); Richard E. Meyer, ed.. Cemeteries and Gravemarkers: Voices of American
Cidture (Ann Arbor and London, 1989).

3. Although there were individual Chinese living in St. Louis before the Civil War, the
Chinese did not become a recognizable aggregate or community until the decade of
the 1870s. See Lucy M. Cohen, Chinese in the Post-Civil War South: A Peopile without a
History (Baton Rouge and London, 1984); C. Fred Blake, "The Life and Times of Alia
Lee: The First Chinese Citizen of St. Louis, Missouri 1857-1880" (unpublished manu-
script. Department of Anthropology, University of Hawaii).

4. "The Late Wong You," St. Louis Globe-Deinocrat (Oct. 25, 1879); "A Celestial Funeral,"
St. Louis Globe-Democrat (Oct. 26, 1879).

5. "The Wesleyan Cemetery Association Journal" (handwritten manuscript in the
archives of the Centennary Episcopal Church, St. Louis, Missouri).

6. The On Leong Tong was the corporate expression of the St. Louis Chinese community
from around the turn of the century until the 1960s. The English-speaking community
often referred to it as "the Chinese Merchants Association" or "the Chinese Masons."
The St. Louis On Leong was one branch of the national organization headquartered in
New York City. The national On Leong Tong was, in turn, part of a loose confederation
of about thirty competing lodges across North America known as the Chee Kung Tong
{Zhigongtang), which supported radical political reform in China before 1911. Unlike
the larger Chinese communities, the St. Louis community appears not to have had a
United Chinese Benevolent Association of various Jniiguan ("official association")
based on native places. The St. Louis On Leong Tong undertook many of the tasks that
huiguan performed in the larger communities, such as dealing with the City Hall and
providing for burials and the repatriation of remains of deceased members to their
native places in China. Beneath the St. Louis On Leong Tong were several surname

C. Fred Blake 81

associations which provided business credit to their members. At the lowest tier of the
old St. Louis community were a number of corporate descent groups which owned
and operated a variety of import and wholesale businesses.

7. The exhumation was undertaken by the leaders of the On Leong Tong. They removed
the remains, washed, dried and packed the bones in metal boxes, and shipped them to
San Francisco, where similar shipments were received from all over the United States.
From San Francisco the containers of bones were shipped to Hong Kong, where they
were sent to their respective villages in the rural districts southwest of Guangzhou for
re-burial: see "Bones of Chinese to be Sent Home/' St. Louis Post Dispatch (Nov. 17,
1928).

8. The manner of marking Chinese graves should indicate the temporal nature of the
Chinese community. Marking a grave with an inscribed stone presumably signifies
some level of permanence. This must certainly be the inference in face of all the factors
that can be adduced to account for graves intended as temporary resting places and
thus unmarked or marked with less durable materials. These factors would include 1)
the Federal laws that excluded Chinese from citizenship in the United States, 2) the
stated intentions and customary practice of the Chinese community to deposit the
bones of its members in the hills surrounding their native villages, 3) the general
poverty of the community and need to expend its meager resources on the shipment of
bones back to China rather than on marking its graves with permanent fixtures, and 4)
the customary idea held by people from south China that exhuming the remains from
temporary graves and cleaning the bones for re-deposition in burial urns in accord
with principles of Chinese geomancy is an important act of filial piety, not to mention
interlineage rivalry and village politics. See Maurice Freedman, Chinese Lineage and
Society: Fukien and Kwangtimg (London, 1966), 118-154, and Ruble S. Watson, "Remem-
bering the Dead: Graves and Politics in Southeastern China," in Death Ritual in Late
Imperial and Modern China, James L. Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski, eds. (Berkeley,
1988), 203-227.

9. When the plots in one lot were filled, each member of the On Leong Tong was asked to
contribute a sum of money for the purchase of the next lot. In this way burial was
under the control of the Tong and every member was guaranteed a place in the ceme-
tery on the occasion of his or her death.

10. The decade of the 1920s, when Chinese burials became continuous and permanent in
St. Louis, was the pivotal decade for Chinese in the United States. This was the period
when the weight of forty years of Federal and State legislation to exclude Chinese
from American society achieved its greatest result in reducing and isolating the Chi-
nese population. The virtual elimination of the Chinese as a viable population, on the
other hand, ironically reduced the pressures against them. Many of the men of this
period had lived and worked in the United States for the better parts of their lives.
Although many expressed a desire to return to their native villages, they were also
completely inured to their ways of making ends meet, and could not return to an Old
World rural economy. The outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941 and the succession of the
Communist Party in 1949 ended, for many, even the desire to return. The series of
Congressional acts and Executive orders which began in 1943 to unravel the official
discrimination against Chinese in the United States provided additional incentives for

82 The Chinese of Valhalla

members of the Chinese community to make their graves in Valhalla their permanent
resting places.

11. Some members of the Chinese community have voiced the idea that the flat grave-
stones of previous decades were the result of racial discrimination against the Chinese.
These voices seem to echo Susan E. Wallace's eloquent description of a Jewish ceme-
tery at Constantinople, where "the stones lie flat, as though pressing down the restless
feet of the scattered, wandering, and persecuted race that is even in the sepulchre
denied the right of an upright memorial" ("Turkish Cemeteries," St. Louis Post Dis-
patch, April 1, 1888). However, in the absence of explicitly stated rules prescribing how
Chinese should mark their graves in Valhalla, this interpretation is difficult to validate,
especially in view of the many flat gravestones also marking the graves of European-
Americans. The interpretation does have merit, on the other hand, if understood in a
very broad context that includes 1 ) the economic priorities of a community that is tran-
sient and, out of necessity, parsimonious; 2) the egalitarian corporate practices of the
On Leong Tong; 3) Cantonese cultural preferences (see note 8); and 4) subtle and not-
so-subtle interethnic expectations and mutual understandings in an atmosphere of
racial hostility. Indeed, the whole cultural complex of Chinese mortuary customs and
stated intentions to be repatriated to China, alive or dead, must be seen in some immea-
surable sense as a response to the racist system that excluded Chinese from participa-
tion in American society In this sense, the practice of marking Chinese graves with flat
stones prior to 1960 may also be seen as yet one more expression of a survival strategy
geared to retaining a "low profile" in a hostile environment. The strategy of keeping a
low profile was manifest in many aspects of ordinary daily life, not the least of which
included the means of livelihood. Most of the Chinese buried in the older sections of
Valhalla worked hand laundries or "chopsuey joints," which were among the hum-
blest of all trades. They lived and worked among the immigrant and transient neigh-
borhoods within the city limits, where they tended to blend with the other "unmeltable
ethnics." Their low profile hfestyles are described by Paul C. P. Siu, The Chinese Laun-
dryman: A Study of Social Isolation, ed. Kuo Wei Tchen (New York and London, 1987).

12. Rose H. Lee, The Chinese in the United States of America (Hong Kong, 1960), 42; Victor G.
Nee and Bret DeBary Nee, Longtime Californ': A Documentary Study of an American Chi-
natown (New York, 1972).

13. In St. Louis, as in many other American cities, the several hundred members of the
original Chinese community joined the migration to the suburbs in the late 1960s. This
move was coupled with the urban renewal in which St. Louis' "Chinatown" on South
Eighth Street was demolished in order to build the parking structure for the Bush
Memorial Stadium. Of course, the demolition of "Chinatown" was not the cause as
much as a symbol of this move to the suburbs, since many Chinese had always lived in
other parts of the city and not in "Chinatown." The 1960s also witnessed the end of the
Chinese hand laundries in St. Louis and the move of the second generation into pro-
fessional occupations. These moves were important parts of a changing kaleidoscope
of living standards, styles, and material artifacts. In the suburbs they were joined by
new waves of Chinese from various parts of East Asia to form part of the working
middle class of metropolitan St. Louis.

14. Except for the inscriptions of Chinese characters, the Chinese gravemarkers are indis-

C. Fred Blake 83

tinguishable from the others in Valhalla. With very few exceptions, there is no trace of
a Chinese cultural influence on the form, shape or substance of the gravemarkers. The
minor exceptions include a recess in the lower corner of the Chung family gravestone
marking the residence of the Chung family guardian earth deity. Also, there is a vague-
ly expressed regard for Chinese geomancy (fengslmi) evidenced by the way some of the
more recent graves are nestled in the side of the hill and by what an employee of the
cemetery refers to as "the Chinese preference for plots on higher ground."

15. Siu, 157.

16. I asked two of my friends in St. Louis with very different backgrounds and a different
set of literary standards to comment on the styUstic aspects of the several thousand
characters in these inscriptions. One friend is trained in Chinese art history and callig-
raphy and is an immigrant from Beijing. My other friend was born and reared in St.
Louis and is the author of several of the Chinese gravestone inscriptions. The com-
ments of these two friends helped me to draw some general inferences about the qual-
ity of the writing.

17. Songti and its modern "imitation," fangsongti, is from a typeface carved on square
blocks in the Song dynasty. It is not a type of calligraphy and it may be copied with any
type of writing utensil. See Yu Gingnan, Meishiizi (Beijing, 1980), 12-13.

18. The fifth type of calligraphy is caoshu, or "grass style." It is a kind of shorthand that
lends itself to such artistic self-expressions that ordinary people sometimes find it dif-
ficult to decipher. This type of calligraphy is appropriate on certain types of public
monuments, for example on monuments to the dead heroes of the revolution in Bei-
jing. But 1 have not seen credible examples of caoshu on ordinary Chinese-American
graveniarkers.

19. The spoken vernaculars of Chinese, which are regionally based, include numerous
words that are not represented by a particular graph or set thereof in the written lan-
guage.

20. I have rendered into italicized Roman letters all the names on the gravestones
inscribed in Chinese characters. Most of these names belong to speakers of a Yue
dialect. These are hyphenated and transcribed according to the pronunciation of the
Guangzhou (Canton city) dialect of the Yue vernacular as described in Zhou Wuji,
Gwangdonghua Biaozhunyin Zihui (Xianggang, 1988). Zhou uses the International Pho-
netic Alphabet, which is awkward for the purpose of this essay. I therefore employ the
system of romanization developed by Parker Po-fei Huang in his Cantonese Dictionary
(New Haven and London, 1970). In Huang's orthography, the "h" after a vowel places
the spoken word in the lower register of the Guangzhou tonal system. The reader
needs to bear in mind several provisos. The first is that the Guangzhou dialect spoken
in the provincial capital constitutes the dominant speech community of the Yue ver-
nacular and therefore only roughly approximates the rural dialects of the Szeyap
region from which the original Chinese community in St. Louis came. Second, exactly
how to characterize the dialects of the original St. Louis community or of the American
"Chinatown Chinese" is uncertain. There is a strong sense among some, including my
friends in the Chinese community, that there has evolved a Chinese dialect that blends

84 The Chinese of Valhalla

the native regional distinctions and incorporates the American experience, but this
notion is challenged by Marjorie K.M. Chan and Douglas W. Lee, "Chinatown Chi-
nese: A Linguistic and Historical Re-evaluation," Amerasia 8:1 (1981): 111-131. Finally,
there are increasing numbers of gravestones in Valhalla that mark the graves of per-
sons from other parts of China with their own vernaculars and dialects. Where in one
other instance 1 cite inscriptions from the Chaozhou area of eastern Guangdong, 1 use
the pronunciation and orthography in the Hanyu Fangyin Zihiii (Beijing, 1962). All
other citations in Chinese conform to the national spoken language (putonghua) and
the Pinyin system of Romanization.

21. Chinese tradition lends preference to writing in vertical columns moving from top to
bottom and right to left. But these columns may also be written from left to right or
in horizontal rows from either direction. I should point out that many forms of the
popular culture employ this versatility, from The People's Daily to the throng of signs
that form the labyrinth of advertisements along Hong Kong's Nathan Road. Howev-
er, having pointed this out, I do not suggest that gravestones belong to the discourse
of popular media. Gravemarkers and popular media, although they occasionally
interact, neverhteless belong to phenomenologically different domains of the Ameri-
can culture.

22. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. On a few stones the position of the native
place name and death date is reversed, while on others (for example Fig.4) the native
place is inscribed across the top of the stone. In the latter case, the characters for the
native place name are sometimes inscribed with such bold strokes as to overshadow
the person's name below.

23. The Chinese death dates on the gravestones employ one or a combination of the three
conventional styles of enumeration (including the very informal mazi or "business
style" numbers on the gravestone in Fig. 17) and one or a combination of several sys-
tems for reckoning time (Gregorian system variously modified, the lunar system, and
the sixty-year cosmic cycle). Although most dates in Chinese agree with the dates in
Roman Arabic script, some do not. A typical example is a death date that reads from
the top to the bottom of the column: Jung-yu Mahn-gwok sahp-baat-nihn sei-yuht sahp-
saam-yaht chaii [Passed away in the eighteenth year of the Republic in the fourth month
thirteenth day at the fourth watch]. The Roman Arabic death date reads "May 21,
1929." The discrepancy between the dates is in the month and day, and, of course, the
Chinese date adds the hour of death. The Chinese date signifies a frame of reference in
which a person's life and death correspond with the ebb and flow of cosmic forces.

24. The percentages in each cell pertain only to the percentages of gravestones on which
the name is the same in both Chinese and Roman scripts. These percentages would
change if we included the gravestones on which the name in Roman script is different
from the name in Chinese script. My analysis does not hinge, however, on these quan-
titative differences, but rather on the semantic structure of logical possibilities.

25. A variation on this format is Seng Chiu's inscription (Fig. 8), in which the Roman script
follows Western usage (Chiu is the surname), while the Chinese script ]iuh Sihng fol-
lows a "modern" format, that is, it reads from the left side with the surname first.

C. Fred Blake 85

26. The paper name is the name in Roman letters required on legal documents in the Unit-
ed States.

27. The nine ways of Romanizing Jiuh on the Valhalla gravestones are "Chao," "Chu,"
"Cheu," "Chew," "Chiu," "Jeu," "Jew," "Jue," and "Jui."

28. Although there is nothing on his gravestone to indicate that Dr. Jue is "Chinese," it is
appropriate, I beUeve, to note the fact that he is a descendant of immigrants from
China and specifically of the Jiuh family from San-umi county in Guangdong province.

29. Six percent of Chinese gravestones in Valhalla express a Christian affiliation with sim-
ple engravings of the cross. Eighteen percent of the markers are engraved with floral
designs. The floral designs provide the most frequent motifs. Although there is a gen-
eral absence of epitaphs, there are a few that express trite or traditional sentiments
such as "Rest in Peace," "Our Eternal Love," and "Together Forever." Others express
the same deep feelings based on a specific relationship: "Our Dear Sister," "Our Boy,"
"Devoted Friend." Although there are no Buddhist-inspired epitaphs or symbols,
there is one from each of several other religious traditions not mentioned in the text of
my essay. From the Christian tradition we find the Pond family [Resting secure in the
bosom of the Lord]. The Chen family catafalque is flanked by a Taoist-inspired cou-
plet: [May pines and cedars stay green for ten thousand years; and rivers and moun-
tains bloom for a thousand years]. The Chung family gravestone is engraved with a
Confucian-inspired couplet: [Let us find joy in the virtue of our ancestors; and let our
posterity prosper in this land of good fortune].

30. Chinese derive surnames from a particular domain of their historical experience
which is untranslatable except as "surname." Given names, however, come from the
words of everyday experience. They often are given in pairs, the two members of
which may stand alone or form a semantic or lexical unit. However, as personal names
these words are embedded in semantic networks and ontological structures that can
not be translated without sounding either "exotic" or "awkward." For example,
among the given names inscribed in Valhalla are Hoh-gzoeng ["a river (of) brightness"],
Gam-YUm ["a river (with) many branches"], Chan-JiJm ["blazing forth"], Sai-kahn ["a
world (of) celery"] or ]euluig-bo ["a likeness (of) waves"]. Other names, for example
Bat-Wiiih ["no benefit"], are difficult to interpret as names that somebody might
inscribe on a gravestone, although there is a precedent in Chinese village culture for
so-called "mean names" according to Russell Jones, "Chinese Names," Journal of the
Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 32:187 (1961), 45. Some names found on the
gravestones translate easily into semantic categories of English, for example, Cheun-
lahm ["spring rains"], and others form a single lexeme, for example, Tsui-sieng ["nar-
cissus"]. But each and every translation of names loses the thick and vital texture of its
meaning in Chinese and the name in translation becomes a veneer of ethnicity. There
are Chinese-Americans who have names that are translated from the Chinese. The
ones I am most familiar with are names like "Narcissus," "Jasmine," "Lotus" and
"Jade." These names fit the Western semantic categories of feminine names for flowers
and precious stones. But even these names, in translation, lose their cultural vitality
and become veneers of ethnicity. In Cantonese, Yuhk [jade] is endowed with the mysti-
cal power of purity and virtue, and this mystical power is gender neutral. In Valhalla
there are several inscriptions of men's names which include the word Yuhk. The Amer-

86 The Chinese of Valhalla

ican name, "Jade," on the other hand, suggests none of the original mystery and
becomes associated instead with stereotypes of the "China doll" or "exotic female."

31. The gravemarkers of women reflect the uneven sex ratio in the Chinese community
over the past seventy years. The overall sex ratio of males per one hundred females is
600, which is the national average for Chinese in the 1920 U.S. Census. See Stanford M.
Lyman, Chinese Americans (New York, 1974), 88.

32. Ruby Watson, "The Named and the Nameless: Gender and Person in Chinese Society,"
American Ethnologist 13:4 (1986): 619-631.

33. Chinese village culture offered few comforts in the face of death outside the elaborate
rituals which expense alone dictated be held only for those who lived long enough to
complete a circle of life. This attitude was garbed in the values of the folk religion and
popular Confucianism which demeaned the life of any person that did not live long
enough to complete the principal filial obligation of reproduction. This obligation was
completely integrated in the highly structured interdependence between living and
deceased members of the family. The death of an unmarried child subverted this struc-
ture of interdependence and thus provided, especially in the case of a female infant, no
occasion for a public expression of grief. The corpse was disposed of, contrary to that
of a married adult, in the most efficient and seemingly indifferent manner possible.
See, for example, the descriptions of J.J.M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, vol.
3 (Leiden, 1897), 1387-1389, and J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese (Shanghai, 1925), 404. The
obvious attention shown to female graves, especially those of female infants, in Chi-
nese Valhalla is probably due to a shifting mixture of values, amongst which we
should count the influence of Christianity, the demographic need for women in a bach-
elor society, and the increasing affluence of the Chinese community.

34. However, there is another dimension to this inscription which is not related directly to
the question of gender. The inscriptions which are in negative relief are painted green
and red. The color green is added to the three characters bi Tsui-sieng [deceased moth-
er Tsiti-sieng] in order to signify the "yin," i.e. the mortal or finite aspect of individual
being. These green-colored characters of personal identity are bracketed by the red
symbols of structure, i. e. the characters for "ancestor," the maiden surname and the
husband's surname — and indeed the character for the tangible "grave" itself. These
are painted the color red to signify the "yang," i.e. the immortal or transcendental
aspect of being — the aspect of being that incorporates the ancestors and their descen-
dants as members of a family. The inscription for a deceased male on a neighboring
gravestone is similarly painted. The native place inscriptions on these stones indicate
ancestral homes in eastern Guangdong. This is a Min-speaking area entirely distinct
from the Yue-speakers who make up the vast majority of the old-time inhabitants of
Valhalla (see note 20). Other indications on these gravestones suggest that the
deceased may be "ethnic Chinese" from Southeast Asia.

35. Jones (26-27) notes that a woman may be known by her maiden name and its signifier
"from early in life, and that her children may never discover what her personal names
are if she does not belong to the 'lower classes'."

36. The history of marriages between men from China and American women in St. Louis is

C. Fred Blake 87

long and complex. Before the Exclusion laws and state miscegenation laws came into
effect in the 1880s, a number of Chinese immigrants married either native-born or
European-born American women. After these laws went into effect, including one
provision in the Federal law that stripped native-born Americans of their citizenship if
they married a Chinese (Lyman, 109), those who wanted to live together and share
their lives simply avoided the law and made their own "common law" arrangements.
These arrangements were sometimes complicated by men who left wives in China,
where they had been married according to village custom (See Siu, 156-170). The post-
1960 movement of Chinese into the white-dominated suburban classes has increased
the pressure on Chinese to disassociate themselves from the Black community, a
process which James Loewen has described in The Mississippi Chinese: Betioeen Wltite
and Black (Cambridge, Mass., 1971). These pressures have been most acutely felt in
"mixed" families of Chinese and African ancestry.

37. The number of villages represented on the gravestones is inexact due to the combina-
tion of three factors: 1) our own analytical definitions of "village" are ambiguous; 2)
native references in the inscriptions to xiang [administrative village], bao [walled vil-
lage], Clin [natural village], and li [hamlet or neighborhood] are used interchangeably;
3) actual places which are designated with one of these native terms for "village" occu-
py various and shifting positions in the hierarchy of modernizing central places.

38. These four counties share common borders along the western edge of the Canton
Delta. Hoi-pihng, Toi-saan and San-unii form three counties of the Szeyap (or Four Dis-
tricts) region, which is based on a distinct dialect and control of the Taahm river
resource base. See Kil Young Zo, "Emigrant Communities in China, Sze-Yap," Asian
Profile 5:4 (1977): 313-323. When Hok-saan is included on the basis of geographical
proximity and cultural affinity, the region is referred to as Ngh-i/ap (Five Districts).
However, Hok-saan is mostly hills and hollows where it backs up against Szeyap along
its western and southern borders. Its small mountain streams feed the Taahm river, but
well south of the county boundary. Thus Hok-saan has no direct share in the Taahm
river basin, but its northeastern border is formed by the major channel of the West
River where it enters the incomparably rich agricultural counties of the Canton Delta.

39. The St. Louis Leong Surname Association was affiliated with the Jung-haau-tohng
(Zhongxiaotang), headquartered in San Francisco.

40. The network of Gii-jeng men in St. Louis is also reflected in the conjugal relationships
that are indicated by the two surnames inscribed on the gravestones of Chinese
women in Valhalla. Most of the inscriptions on the gravestones of Chinese women in
Valhalla indicate they came from a village in the Gu-jeng market area and married a
man from another village in the same area. This conjugal pattern distinguishes the Gu-
jeng men of Valhalla from their contemporaries in the Chinese community who did not
reproduce their market-based conjugal network in St. Louis.

41. By actual descent group I mean a group that records actual genealogical relationships.
These are distinguished from the much more inclusive groups that recruit members
simply on the basis of a shared surname.

42. According to Jones (11), the arrangement of "generational names" in the form of a

88 The Chinese of Valhalla

poem began in the Han dynasty as a mnemonic device. In poetic form, each line con-
sists of five names and each stanza consists of two, four or six lines, hence ten, twenty,
or thirty generations of names. The four line poem of the Leong descent group from
San-und county, Gii-jeng market is typical of the ones 1 elicited: Sai dak fong chyuhn sau,
Douh wihng sihng sin tiing, Jeiihng yihn king i/iihn cheiing, Jung daaih kaai san i/auh. Loose-
ly translated: [Let our virtue be kept and protected in the four corners of the realm. Let
the eternal Way govern our ancestral tradition. Let our models of virtue prosper into
the distant future. And let the greatness of our ancestors begin anew.] The St. Louis
descendants of this group are currently in the third line of their poem, but with the
demise of the Leongs as a corporate descent group in St. Louis the poem has become
increasingly irrelevant and all but forgotten.

43. These five names make up one line of the Hok-saan Leong's ancestral poem: Jou yihk sai
cin/uhn fong [Let the virtue of our ancestors be spread far and wide].

44. 1 am using market town reference points here instead of the particular villages in order
to simplify the analysis. Most members of the Leuhng descent group in Hok-saan come
from the villages of Chiihng-hah and Leidmg-kang, which are one and two kilometers
west of HaaJip-tuhng market. The Leiding descent group from San-wui, Gu-jeng is from
the village of Naahm-lohng.

45. The fact that five generations are represented contemporaneously may be accounted
for by long-term differential rates of reproduction between segments of the group due
to difference in command over economic resources. See Hugh D. R. Baker, Chinese
Family and Kinship (New York, 1979), 56-57.

46. 1 have not yet been able to obtain much information on this large descent group that
straddled the county line, but it would appear to be similar to the Kuan lineage of Hoi-
pihng described in Yuen-fong Woon, Social Organization in South China 1911-1949: The
Case of the Kuan Lineage in K'ai-p'ing County, Center for Chinese Studies Monograph 48
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1984).

47. The origin of the "Double Leongs" celebrates the exploits of Ngau Ying, a local culture
hero whose foolishness and tricks became legendary. Early orphaned, he lives with his
father's sister, who is married to the Leong family in Hoh-chyiin. When he is hungry, he
steals the villager's potatoes; when pursued, he abandons the cremated remains of his
parents in the cleft of a mountain that turns out to have excellent geomancy, the bene-
fits of which he almost squanders through ignorance. Later he betrays his aboriginal
(Miao) patrons whom he has taught the benefits of civilization and annihilates them in
a great holocaust under the assumed name of Leong and in the pay of his royal over-
lord. Through thievery, accident, and guile, and despite serious blunders, he wins
fame and fortune and in time gives up his ancestral name, Ngau, to assume the Leong
surname. Ngau-Leuhng Ying thus mediates and reflects the crucial boundaries of Chi-
nese identity, the boundaries between man and nature, the civilized and the savage,
and between different patrilineal descent groups.

48. The role of the "comic fool" is often assigned to a person or group which mediates a
critical social boundary. A critical social boundary is a point of interaction that is
fraught with tension but also serves as the foundation of social order. The group that

C. Fred Blake 89

straddles this boundary or point of identification is often the purveyor and the butt of
so-called "moron jokes" which turn the common sense on its head. In this way, the
offending-and-offended group, which is one and the same, embodies, represents, and
reflects the mysteries of (the) social order itself. The quality of community life depends
on the "good nature" rather than the hostility of the group that offends and is offend-
ed. See C. Fred Blake, "Racial Victimage in Hawaii: The Role of the Comic in Reducing
Violence," Planning the Good Life for Hawaii: Proceedings of the 1980 Humanities Confer-
ence (Honolulu: Hawaii Committee for the Humanities, 1981), 148-153.

Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

Fig. 1 Charles Lloyd Neale

Fifty Years of Reliability: The Stonecarving Career of
Charles Lloyd Neale (1800-1886) in Alexandria, Virginia.

David Vance Finnell

Reliability must have been the retail theme of 1883 in Alexandria,
Virginia. The city's commercial directory that year characterizes nearly
half of all local businesses as "reliable," a word the directory always itali-
cizes. For example, Thomas Devitt's grocery at the intersection of Duke
and Alfred Streets is "a reliable house"; Fowle & Company, cotton dealers
on Union Street, is "a reliable concern"; and the drygoods merchant Isaac
Eichberg at the corner of King and Royal "assures all who may deal with
him ... perfectly fair and reliable dealing." Not surprisingly, the directory
says of C.L. Neale & Sons, whose marble yard occupied the southwest
corner of Duke and Columbus: "These gentlemen ... are reliable persons,
and will execute with fidelity and dispatch all work entrusted to them."i

However repetitious the directory may have been in its vocabulary,
the word "reliable" appears to have suited Neale & Son perfectly. By
1883 Charles L. Neale had been operating his stonecutting business in
Alexandria for some forty-five years. The number of gravemarkers bear-
ing the Neale signature in local church cemeteries was legion. While
these facts do not prove Neale's reliability, they certainly suggest it. This
review of Charles L. Neale's work will show that the key to Neale's sus-
tained business success was a strong, simple carving style that satisfied
the tastes of his community.

Charles Lloyd Neale (Fig. 1) was born September 26, 1800 to Charles
and Mary Mariman Neale of St. Mary's County, Maryland. The family
belonged to an old and respected Maryland clan that traced its Ameri-
can roots to Captain James Neale of Walleston Manor, who brought his
family to Maryland from England in 1660. Charles Lloyd's grandfather
was James Neale, said to have served in the Revolutionary War as Com-
missary-General of the Maryland line with the rank of colonel, although
no official record has been found to confirm this.^

In his twenties, Charles L. Neale moved to Washington D.C. Family
legend has it that Neale worked on the construction of the Capitol build-
ing, begun in 1793 when President Washington laid its cornerstone. It is
not clear whether Neale left home already versed in the art of stonecut-
ting or learned it as he went. In 1829, Neale married a local woman

Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

named Ann Johnson. Two children were born to the couple in Washing-
ton, one of whom, Charles Washington Neale, would become the first of
three sons to join his father's firm.

At some point in the mid-1 830s Charles and his family moved across
the Potomac River to Alexandria, technically part of the District until
1846. Neale may have come to Alexandria specifically to replace Edward
Colgate, the town's sole stonecutter, who was present as late as 1834, but
does not appear in the 1840 census schedule for the District of Colum-
bia.3 The same census schedule lists Neale's third child, age three, as a
Virginia native. That would put Neale in Alexandria as early as 1837
(this, coincidentally, is the date on what appears to be the oldest stone
signed by Neale, the John De Vaughn marker in Union Methodist Ceme-
tery). Elliott and Nye's Virginia Directory and Business Register for 1852
puts Neale's shop at the southwest corner of Fairfax and Prince. In 1870,
the business relocated to Duke Street next to the residence of Charles'
son Frank (Fig. 2).'* Here the marble yard would remain until the busi-
ness closed its doors in 1916, thirty years after Charles L. Neale's death.

Neale's decision to settle in the old river town of Alexandria was
something of a gamble. For various economic reasons, the place had not
been able to sustain its 18th century importance as both a national and

Fig. 2 Southwest comer of Duke and Columbus Streets, Alexandria,
Virginia, final site of the Neale marble yard (1870-1916)

David Vance Finnell

international mercantile port, losing out gradually to Baltimore to the
north and Richmond to the south. Commerce had been declining for
years. Industry, which might have revitalized the tovv^n's economy, was
virtually nonexistent.^ To make matters worse, the Bank of Alexandria
had closed its doors in 1834, a local foreshadowing of the national finan-
cial panic of 1837.^

Nevertheless, Alexandria had several things going for it that would
certainly have attracted Neale. One was the city's distinctly residential
character. Retail shops, small manufactories, and private dwellings pre-
dominated. Schools, churches, and civic institutions were plentiful. The
wealth of structures created, in theory, a demand for artisans to main-
tain, renovate, and, occasionally, replace existing structures. In the late
1830s the town experienced a short but intense building boom. Several
large buildings, including the court house (1838) and Alexandria's cul-
tural center, the Lyceum (1839), were erected. '^ While no building records
mention Neale in regard to these major projects, he may well have been
sub-contracted to handle or assist with the stonework. If not, he could
reasonably have expected to find employment at other local construction
sites during this brief period of prosperity.

Fig. 3 Detail, Benjamin S. King, 1847, Union Methodist Cemetery

Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

The second feature that must have appealed to Neale as a specialist
in gravestone carving was the cultural stability and moral tone of the
community. To earn a steady income from this kind of carving required a
clientele that had the means, the opportunity, and the inclination to
observe the religious and popular rituals of death ... and to observe them
locally. Deaths among a more transient population or within a town lack-
ing adequate burying grounds would have discouraged local inter-
ments. This was not the case in Alexandria, which possessed a perma-
nent population of roughly eight thousand whites and free blacks.^ At
the time, the town had one Catholic cemetery, six Protestant cemeteries,
one black cemetery, one pauper cemetery, and many small family grave-
yards.9 Each of the cemeteries, Neale must have noted with a profession-
al eye, had plenty of room for expansion.

Two hundred and thirteen markers in Alexandria (see Appendix) can
be attributed to C.L. Neale & Sons: 198 headstones; eight obelisks; five
monuments; one ledger stone; and one table stone. Ninety percent of the
markers date from 1860, while only two bear dates before 1850. The
paucity of early Neale markers is not surprising given the neglect these
cemeteries suffered in the mid-1 9th century.io Since all but the Catholic

Fig. 4 Detail, Charles F. Webster, 1873, St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery

David Vance Finnell

cemetery were located outside the town boundaries, Alexandria police
were powerless until after the Civil War to protect the cemeteries from
vandals or from local farmers whose cattle grazed within the cemetery
enclosures. An 1853 letter to the town newspaper laments the "ruined
walls, sunken and trodden graves" that characterized these antebellum
cemeteries.il The war hastened the degradation: the Federal forces occu-
pying Alexandria used the cemeteries freely as campsites and corrals.
Thus, Neale's markers were at considerable risk in these early years, and
at least a few of them must have been damaged, moved or stolen.

One of Neale's oldest surviving stones is the Benjamin S. King mark-
er (Fig. 3), dated 1847, in Methodist Protestant (Union Methodist) Ceme-
tery. Its broad, flat shape (2' x 5') and the symmetrical anthemion across
its brow reflect a neo-classical taste already out of vogue when King
died. It is unique among Neale's signed tombstones. However, the pres-
ence nearby of similar markers, unsigned and contemporaneous, sug-
gest that Neale may have produced these too. The King marker provides
an interesting point of comparison with the Victorian period markers
that Neale would carve later.

While Neale never again carved so overt a geometrical pattern, he

'^m-^^

Fig. 5 Detail, Jane P. Cuvillier, 1874, St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery

Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

did occasionally use such patterns for purposes of embellishment. For
example, the Charles F. Webster headstone (Fig. 4), dated 1873, in St.
Mary's Catholic Cemetery includes a delicately rendered series of
curved incisions reminiscent of the King design. The symmetrical inci-
sions enclose a circular tympanum featuring a cut rose, symbolizing
mortality and human love. This graceful line art serves both a decorative
and a thematic purpose. It draws the viewer's eye into the partly shaded
niche, where the rose droops on its stem. The stem, like man's existence,
has been severed while the rose is still blooming. And because of its
proximity to the rose, the design takes on the abstract appearance of

Fig. 6 Detail, Lowe obelisk, 1873, St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery

David Vance Finnell

foliage or creeping ivy. This optical illusion serves to extend and accen-
tuate the floral motif.

Neale used exactly the same design in 1874 for Jane P. Cuvillier's
stone (Fig. 5) in St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery. As before, a twin series of
curved lines border a circular tympanum. Here, the tympanum encloses
that staple of Victorian iconography, the hand of God pointing Heaven-
ward. The function of the line art is the same - to highlight the tympa-
num and to accentuate the central motif. The effect, however, is quite dif-
ferent. While the filigree of the Webster headstone suggests Nature
locked in earthly time, the same pattern here creates the illusion of celes-

Fig. 7 Lowe obelisk

Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

tial movement - clouds roiling around God's hand, or rays of light ema-
nating from God's person.

The icons of the rose and the divine hand interact in one of Neale's
more ambitious works, the tall obelisk commissioned by Judge Enoch
Magruder Lowe upon his wife's death in 1873. On the ten-foot-high shaft
is a downward-turned hand grasping the rope-handle of a flower bas-
ket. Two rows of rounded shapes represent clouds, from which the hand
is emerging. These shapes are balanced by a profusion of flowers filling
the fluted container (Fig. 6). Neale's symbolic depiction of God lifting the
soul of the departed to heaven is stylized: the clouds are static, the clasp-
ing hand is veinless, and the plucked flowers sit in two perfect rows. Not
a breath of movement animates this almost surreal scene.

Full-sized obelisks like the Lowe monument represent only three
percent of Neale's total output, even though obelisks occur frequently in
Alexandria cemeteries. The obelisk's imposing size and high cost
appealed to Alexandria's status-conscious gentry, who preferred to take
their trade to the large and prestigious marble firms in Baltimore and
Washington D.C.i^ Yet the simple beauty of the entire Lowe monument
(Fig. 7) - its perfect proportions, its crisp tabular inscriptions, its elegant

Fig. 8 Detail, Lowe obelisk

David Vance Finnell

eaves arching over solitary flowers (Fig. 8) - proves Neale's capability
for handling large commissions. Of Neale's other obelisks, the Wedder-
burn monument (1859) in Trinity Methodist Cemetery, the Calmes mon-
ument (1873) in Washington Street Methodist Cemetery, and the Evans
monument (1875) in Union Methodist Cemetery are noteworthy for
their stately simplicity. Neale even produced a convincing miniature
obelisk, seventy-two inches tall, for Kate M. McGuire (1865), a twenty-
eight-year-old widow (Fig. 9). Though miniature markers were normal-
ly reserved for children, Kate's parents no doubt still considered her
their little girl. The inscription on a side panel reads: "Our darling fell
asleep./ When will the morning come."

Fig. 9 Kate M. McGuire, 1865, St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery

100

Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

The usual signature of C.L. Neale & Sons was a straightforward
"Neale" on the plinth or at the lower right-hand corner of the marker's
face. Neale experimented in the 1850s and 1860s with a cursive style, but
returned eventually to using plain block letters exclusively. On a few
occasions the word "fecit" or "maker" was appended (Fig. 10). Neale
sometimes added his initials, but never his Christian name. Only rarely
did he indicate "Alex VA" on local stones, saving this formula for monu-
ments destined for out-of-town locations where his work and place of
business were less familiar, i^

Apart from stonecutting, Neale led an active civic and political life in
Alexandria. He headed the town's night security patrol in the 1850s,
served as city councilman in the 1850s and 1860s, and acted as clerk of
the city market in the 1870s and 1880s.i4 On May 23, 1861, Neale and his
oldest son voted in favor of secession, even though Neale did not per-
sonally approve of slavery.^^ The next day a Union regiment entered
Alexandria. Its commander, twenty-four-year-old Colonel Elmer
Ellsworth, was shot and killed removing a secessionist flag flying atop a
hotel on King Street. His assailant, James Jackson, the hotel keeper, was

. ■^: ^f} rrfr

A .., ^

a»

Fig. 10 Early Neale signature. Thomas Buckingham, 1859, Washington
Street Methodist Cemetery

David Vance Firtnell

101

killed almost immediately by one of Ellsworth's troops.^^ Neale and
eleven other citizens were chosen to serve on the coroner's jury investi-
gating Jackson's homicide. They returned the verdict that Jackson had
died "in defence of his home and private rights," a brave and defiant
finding, indeed, given the presence of a hostile military force.^'' Neale
was obviously a man of nerve and passion.

Perhaps Neale's finest work is the Chatham obelisk (Fig. 11) in Trinity
Methodist Cemetery. James Chatham, who died in April, 1885 at the age
of seventy-two, owned the livery stable in town. His livery service was,
in the words of his obituary, "well known almost throughout the entire

^'T-^'.^^jl\

■*. ■*

r>%>??k

^:-^H>'^^?^i*^^,|5^

Fig. 11 James Chatham, 1885, Trinity Methodist Cemetery

102

Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

State," apparently because of the part Chatham played in a serio-comic
assault on President Andrew Jackson in 1833.18 The story goes that after
Jackson dismissed Lieutenant Beverley Randolph (of the famous Vir-
ginia Randolphs) from the U.S. Navy for allegedly embezzling Gover-
ment funds, Randolph boarded Jackson's ship tied up at Alexandria,
forced his way into Jackson's cabin, and gave the President's nose a
painful tug. In the ensuing melee, Chatham and other friends of Ran-
dolph got the assailant ashore and safely out of town.i^

The Chatham monument is a modest marble stone, comprising a
blunted four-foot-high shaft, a base bearing the Chatham name in block
letters, and a square plinth. The inscription is spare, and the sentiment,
running in small cursive script along the base of the shaft, says only:
"Through much suffering he is at Rest." What is special about the
Chatham obelisk is its exquisite detail. Perhaps no illusion is more diffi-
cult to create in representational art than the texture and shading of
tapestry. The tasseled and embroidered funeral pall that Neale fashioned
for the upper section of the monument provides a convincing illusion.
The entire shaft is one piece of marble. The pall, though, appears dis-
tinct, as if draped over the obelisk. What appear to be innumerable folds

Fig. 12 Detail, Chatham obelisk

David Vance Frnnell

103

in the shroud are three patterns repeated from one side of the obelisk to
the next. A lovely garland of small flowers, carved in high relief and sig-
nifying death overcome, hangs above the inscribed tablet (Fig. 12).
Beneath the tablet is an wavy abstract design suggesting the head and
wings of an angel.

The Chatham obelisk is unlike anything else in Neale's canon. Con-
sidering Neale's advanced age in 1885, one wonders whether the marker
may not have been the work of his surviving son, Frank. However,
Neale's obituary emphasizes the old man's "remarkable vigor" and
remarks that he had "worked at his trade (stonecarving) up to a short

Fig. 13 Neale family obelisk, 1862, St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery

104 Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

time ago," a fact confirmed by Neale's great-great-grandson, William F.
King, of Springfield, Virginia.^o There is thus every reason to believe
Neale had a direct hand in the Chatham carving, the culmination of a
long and prolific career.

One other Neale obelisk deserves mentioning, and that is the one in
St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery commemorating Neale's oldest son,
Charles Washington Neale, who died in 1862 (Fig. 13). One of the practi-
cal benefits of an obelisk is the extra space it gives for genealogical data.
Neale used three sides of the base and one side of the shaft to chronicle
the names of four other Neale family members, including "Little Willie,"
his infant son who lived only a month. The Neale obelisk is made of
brownstone, an attractive sandstone native to the Eastern seaboard and
one that Neale often mentioned in advertisements. Unfortunately, the
soft and porous nature of brownstone is sadly apparent in this deterio-
rating marker. 21

Despite its longevity, C.L. Neale & Sons never monopolized the
stonecutting trade in Alexandria. Through the mid-to-late nineteenth
century, a succession of rival stonecarvers set up shop in town, the most
notable being William Chauncey (1834-1900), who in the 1870s pur-
chased a marble yard one block away from Neale's.22 Competition con-
vinced Neale of the importance of advertising. Chataigne's Alexandria
City Directory for 1881-1882 shows on page 118 a typical Neale advertise-
ment, in which the firm is said to be "prepared to execute all orders for
Monumental and Head Stone Work, Steps, Sills and Lintels. Carving and
Lettering executed in the best manner." The accompanying illustration
bows to the sentimentalism of the day: a lady and child mourn beneath a
weeping willow in a well-ordered necropolis. The advertisement also
contains a major typographic error: instead of "C.L. Neale & Sons," the
copy reads "S.C. Neale & Sons." Sidney Chapman Neale, apparently no
relation, was a prominent attorney in town during this time. Such a mis-
print must have embarrassed both men. Was it a coincidence that the
firm of C.L. Neale & Sons was not commissioned to make any of the
markers in the S.C. Neale family plot in St. Paul's Episcopal Cemetery?

As the advertisement makes clear, Neale's business extended beyond
the graveyard. He was evidently prepared to undertake a variety of
commercial and domestic stonecutting jobs. Much of the firm's handi-
work is surely extant in Old Town Alexandria, a topic worthy of further
research. We do know that Neale was responsible for the stonework

David Vance Finnell

105

inside the Catholic parish hall (no longer standing) that opened in 1859,
and that his son Frank was sub-contracted in 1872 to install a mantel of
"marbleized slate" in the Lambert House at 407 Duke Street.23

Neale never assayed a truly original design. However, his trade-
mark was a double column-and-arch design that forms the basis of four
family monuments in Alexandria: the Harlow tomb (1879), St. Mary's
Catholic Cemetery; the Hammond tomb (1881), the Presbyterian ceme-
tery; the Bossart tomb (1881), St. Paul's Episcopal Cemetery; and the
Downey tomb (1903), St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery. While Neale cer-
tainly did not create this design, which is not uncommon in other Vir-

Fig. 14 Harlow family monument, 1879, St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery

106 Stonecarving of Qiarles Lloyd Neale

ginia cemeteries and elsewhere, he was the only carver to employ it in
Alexandria.24

Neale's double column-and-arch design was suitable for family
markers, providing ample room for inscription. It consists, from the
ground up, of a three-tiered base, two fourteen-inch cubes, two two-
foot-high columns, and an arch. At the apex of the arch is a finial: an urn
for Protestants; the Latin cross for Catholics. The entire monument is
nine feet high and, at the base, four feet wide. The earliest example of
this design, the Harlow family monument (Fig. 14), differs slightly from
the others in that its base is two-tiered, not three; the capitals of its
columns are plain, not decorative; and the negative silhouette within the
monument is rounded, not pointed.

Aesthetically, these column-and-arch monuments are interesting but
graceless. The compressed bulk of their columns, carved from cement-
gray stone, overwhelms the rest of the tomb, and the finials seem too tall
for their arch supports (in fact, the urn on the Bossart monument has
snapped off and is now wedged for safekeeping between the columns).
Yet Neale's column-and-arch motif succeeds nicely when incorporated
into a better balanced structure. A case in point is the family monument
in St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery marking the grave of Neale himself and
his wife (Fig. 15). The pedestal supports four unfluted columns, smaller
than the pair on the nearby Harlow tomb. The naked arch of the Harlow
monument is here merged into a well-proportioned canopy, steeply
pitched and domed, providing a secure base for the cross. The overall
effect is that of a miniature mausoleum, pleasing in scale and style, and
certainly an improvement on Neale's original design. Presumably, Frank
Neale oversaw the production of this unsigned tomb after his father's
death, although Charles himself may have originally carved the monu-
ment when his wife died in 1874.

Charles Lloyd Neale died June 8, 1886. The cause of death was pneu-
monia brought on, according to Neale's descendants, by his spartan
habit of taking a cold shower in the marble yard each day. Frank Neale
died in 1894. Frank's widow, Carrie, remarried, and with her second hus-
band, John McKenna, a stonecutter, maintained the business until
McKenna's death in 1916. Even after the firm's name was changed to
Alexandria Marble Works in 1895, the Neale name continued to appear
on markers as the firm worked its way through its inventory of "pre-
signed" Neale stones.

David Vance Finnell

107

Fig. 15 The Charles Lloyd Neale monument,
St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery

The author of an unpublished paper on Alexandria tombstones
observes that Alexandria cemeteries do not show the usual rich variety
of Victorian sepulchral art - the weeping willows, the sleeping lambs,
the open books.^s The author implies that the mediocrity of the home-
town carvers explains this absence of ornamentation.^^ This is unfair to
Neale and other local stonecutters, who employed an unadorned style
deliberately. The community's taste in commemorative art, grounded in
the town's Scottish heritage, was essentially conservative.^^ While Victo-

108

Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

rian iconography is abundantly present in local carving, it is usually on
a modest scale.

The restrained nature of local sepulchral art played to Neale's
strength as a competent, straightforward stonecutter. His carving style,
even at its most fanciful, bespeaks simplicity and vigor. Admittedly, he
possessed little of the innate originality and artistic flair of two notable
nineteenth century stonecarvers in Virginia, J.W. Da vies of Richmond
and Charles Miller Walsh of Petersburg.^s Yet, as the Lowe and Chatham

Fig. 16 James H. Neale, the youngest son, who died at age thirty-four

David Vance Finnell 109

monuments show, Neale was certainly capable of inspired work.

Neale's remarkable career spanned half a century. The solid quality
of his carving and the reliability of his service (touted by the 1883 com-
mercial directory) allowed Neale to flourish in a competitive market. His
three sons, Charles, James (Fig. 16), and Frank, added their energy and
talent to what became a successful and long-lived family business. As a
public man, Neale enriched Alexandria through his active involvement
in the political and commercial life of the city. The myriad markers in
Alexandria bearing the Neale signature are tributes to this skilled crafts-
man and responsible citizen.

NOTES

All photographs are by the author, with the exception of Figures 1 and 16, provided
through the courtesy of Mr. William F. King, Springfield, VA.

1. F.L. Brockett and George W. Rock., A Concise History of the city of Alexandria, Virginia,
from J669-1883 ivith a Directory of Reliable Businesses (Alexandria, Va., 1883), 57-58, 66.

2. William F. King, interview with author, Alexandria, Va., January 12, 1992. Unless oth-
erwise noted, all genealogical data in this article come from family notes supplied by
Mr. King in this interview.

3. Peter Matthews, "Alexandria (D.C.) Directory 1834 Occupational Listing" (Alexan-
dria, Va.: Office of Historic Alexandria, 1988), 14.

4. Deed Book 17, Clerk's Office, Circuit Court, Alexandria, Virginia, 24. Neale's sons
Francis (Frank) and James were the actual owners of this property. They purchased it
for $460 on December 2, 1870.

5. Steven J. Shephard, "Development of a City Site: Alexandria, Virginia, 1750-1850"
(Paper presented at the Historic Petersburg Conference on Urbanization in Maryland
and Virginia, March 11-12, 1988), 8, 11, 13.

6. Ethelyn Cox, Historic Alexandria Virginia Street By Street (Alexandria, 1976), xix.

7. Cox, vi, xix-xx.

8. Shephard, 16.

9. "The Fireside Sentinel: An Historical Journal about Alexandria Published by the
Lloyd House, Alexandria Library" 1:8 (1987): 60-68.

10. "The Fireside Sentinel" 1:9 (1987): 79.

110 Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

11 . Alexandria Gazette (Sept. 2, 1853).

12. Many of the grander Victorian monuments in Alexandria's cemeteries came from the
marble works of William A. Griffith of Washington D.C. and the Gaddes brothers of
Baltimore.

13. For example, the graveyard in Sabillasville, Maryland, seventy-five miles to the
northwest, contains two markers signed "C.L. Neale Alex Va."

14. Neale obituary, Alexandria Gazette (June 8, 1886).

15. "The Fireside Sentinal" 3:4 (1989): 44.

16. E.B. Long, The Civil War Day by Day (Garden City, 1971 ), 77-78.

17. Edgar Warfield, A Confederate Soldier's Memoirs (Richmond, 1936), 46.

18. Chatham obituary. The Alexandria Gazette (April 8, 1885).

19. Jonathan Daniels, The Randolphs of Virginia: America's Foremost Family (New York,
1972), 263.

20. Neale obituary. The Alexandria Gazette (June 8, 1886).

21. Cyril M. Harris, ed.. Dictionary of Architecture and Construction (New York, 1975), 71.

22. J.H. Chataigne, Chataigne's Alexandria City Directory, 1876-77 (D.C, 1876), 190.

23. T. Michael Miller, ed.. Pen Portraits of Alexandria, 1739-1900 (Bowie, Md., 1987), 367.

24. For example, the same design occurs in Riverview Cemetery, Strasburg, Virginia, and
Mount Hebron Cemetery, Madison, Virginia.

25. Suzita Myers, "'Remember Me As You Pass By': Style as Evidence in Tombstones of
Alexandria" (manuscript, Alexandria Public Library, Lloyd House, undated), 12.

26. Ibid., 4.

27. Barry Axell Berglund, "Annexation: A Study of the Growth of Alexandria, Virginia"
(M.A. diss., Oklahoma University, 1974), 3; Shephard, 18.

28. On Walsh, see Martha Wren Briggs, "Charles Miller Walsh: A Master Carver of Grave-
stones in Virginia, 1865-1901," Markers 7 (1990): 139-171.

David Vance Finnell

111

APPENDIX

ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF

MARKERS IN ALEXANDRIA CEMETERIES^

AHRIBUTABLE TO THE NEALE FIRM.

1883

Abendschein, John

Washington Street

1878

Addison, Dr. Edmund B.

Trinity Methodist

1883

Anderson, John S.

St. Mary's

1887

Appich, David

Presbyterian

1857

Arnold, Mary

Methodist Protestant

1871

Baggett, Mary Ann

Presbyterian

1863

Barrett, infant

St. Paul's

1874

Bell, Lizzie Tinsley

Presbyterian

1890

Blonheim, Simon

Home of Peace

1888

Bohraus, Jacob

Bethel

1881

Bossart, Mary A.

St. Paul's

1865

Boyer, John

Washington Street

1872

Bradley, Harrison

Trinity Methodist

1870

Brewis, baby

Trinity Methodist

1870

Brewis, Thomas A.

Trinity Methodist

1879

Brown, Abraham

Home of Peace

1861

Browne, Ellen Douglass

St. Paul's

1891

Bryan, Martha

Presbyterian

1868

Bryant, John J.

Methodist Protestant

1861

Buchanan, Robert E.

Methodist Protestant

1863

Buchanan, Robert E., Jr.

Methodist Protestant

18??

Buckingham, I.

Washington Street

1859

Buckingham, Thomas

Washington Street

1866

Burchell, Edward

Trinity Methodist

1868

Callender, Margaret

St. Mary's

1868

O'Sullivan, Jeremiah

St. Mary's

1869

Carmichael, Sarah L.

St. Paul's

1863

Came, Mary C.

St. Mary's

1872

Came, Richard L.

St. Mary's

1885

Chatham, James

Trinity Methodist

1865

Churchman, John

Washington Street

1861

Clagett, Ann

St. Paul's

186?

Clagett, Richard

Trinity Methodist

1874

Clagett, Sarah

Trinity Methodist

1873

Clames, Joseph

Washington Street

1878

Clark, Alexander

Methodist Protestant

1874

Clark, Caroline

Methodist Protestant

1883

Clifford, George W.

Washington Street

1872

Coffee, Bridget

St. Mary's

187?

Colvin, James R.

Washington Street

1865

Concannon, Catherine

St. Mary's

112

Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

1880

Cook, Hortensia H.

Presbyterian

1873

Cook, John D.

Methodist Protestant

1876

Cooney, Joseph

St. Mary's

1868

Corbet, Michael

St. Mary's

1876

CowUng, EHzabeth

Methodist Protestant

1871

Coxen, Mary A.

St. Mary's

1865

Cracken, James M.

Washington Street

1883

Craven, John

Trinity Methodist

1884

Craven, Virginia A.

Trinity Methodist

1851

Cross, Reid

Trinity Methodist

1862

Cuander, JuHa E.

Presbyterian

1874

Cuvilher, Jane P.

St. Mary's

1861

Dade, Mary T.

Christ Church

1888

Davidson, Jane Welborne

Presbyterian

1893

Davis, James T.

Methodist Protestant

1872

Davy, Susan

Trinity Methodist

1881

Demaine, EHzabeth

Methodist Protestant

1880

Dentinger, Bessie C.

St. Paul's

1864

DeVaughn,

Washington Street

1863

De Vaughn, Emma Blake

Washington Street

1837

DeVaughn, John

Methodist Protestant

1859

Diez, Eve Catherine

St. Paul's

1884

Dobie, Mary J.

Methodist Protestant

1875

Dorsey, Mary

St. Paul's

1875

Douglass, J. Edwards

Presbyterian

1903

Downey, John T. (unsigned)

St. Mary's

1881

Dreifus, Caroline

Home of Peace

1890

Duffey, Sarah C.

Methodist Protestant

1879

Dugan, Anthony

St. Mary's

1885

Duke, Elizabeth

Washington Street

1868

Dulany, Getta

St. Paul's

1850

Emerson, Aquilla

St. Paul's

1878

Entwisle, Marvin

Washington Street

1861

Evans, Dr. John

St. Mary's

1875

Evans, John T.

Methodist Protestant

1873

Fadely, Milton W.

Methodist Protestant

1854

Eairall, Grafton

St. Paul's

1889

Fleming, Andrew J.

Presbyterian

1888

Fleming, Catherine

Presbyterian

1885

Fleming, Eliza

Presbyterian

1880

Foote, Mary Marshall

Christ Church

1873

Glover, Laura J.

Methodist Protestant

1872

Gregory, Douglas S.

Presbyterian

187?

Grimes, Joseph

Methodist Protestant

1877

Grimes, Margaret

Methodist Protestant

1879

Grunebaum, Harry

Home of Peace

1852

Gunney, Mary

St. Mary's

1872

Hall, Mary Ann

St. Paul's

1887

Hall, Thomas M.

St. Paul's

David Vance Finnell

113

1887

Hammill, Bridget

St. Mary's

1890

Hammill, Henry

St. Mary's

1897

Hammond, J.T.

Presbyterian

1881

Hammond, Nan

Presbyterian

1879

Harlow, Michael

St. Mary's

1857

Harper, Washington M.

Washington Street

1877

Harrish, Elizabeth

Methodist Protestant

1864

Harvey, Grace A.

Presbyterian

1882

Hayes, Patrick E.

St. Mary's

1864

Hellmuth, Louis

St. Mary's

1865

Hoare, Cornelia

Methodist Protestant

1894

Hollenbury, Harriet

Trinity Methodist

1862

Hooe, Eleanor

Christ Church

1882

Hooff, Rebecca

St. Paul's

18??

Houre, Mary Louisa

Washington Street

1864

House, Ann W.

Methodist Protestant

1859

Huguely, Edgar

Methodist Protestant

1865

Huguely, George F.

Methodist Protestant

1876

Hunter, Margaret

St. Paul's

1865

Hussey, Sibyl D.

Washington Street

1872

Jenkins, William

St. Mary's

1860

Johnson, Ann

Methodist Protestant

1879

Johnson, William A.

Washington Street

1865

Jordan, James W.

Washington Street

1879

Kantman, Hannah

Home of Peace

1880

Kelly, Indianna

Presbyterian

1847

King, Benjamin S.

Methodist Protestant

1865

King, Jane

St. Mary's

1874

King, Mary

St. Mary's

1869

Kinzer, L Louis

Presbyterian

1883

Laws, Neman

Washington Street

1878

Lawson, Robert, Jr.

Trinity Methodist

18??

Lindheimer, Rudolph

Home of Peace

1864

Lindsey, James

Methodist Protestant

1872

Lowe, Mary Joyce

St. Mary's

1864

Machenheiner, Eliza

St. Paul's

1875

Mason, Capt. Murray

Christ Church

1870

Massey, Mary

St. Mary's

1882

Masterson, Mary A.

St. Mary's

1883

May, John Alvin

Washington Street

1880

McCliesh, George

Presbyterian

1865

McGuire, Kate M.

St. Mary's

1882

McKnight, Mary E.

Presbyterian

1884

McLean, Elizabeth

St. Mary's

1874

McLean, Joseph

St. Mary's

1858

McLean, Martha

St. Paul's

1860

Meagher, Mathew

St. Mary's

1862

Milburn, B.C.

St. Paul's

1862

Milburn, Thirza

St. Paul's

114

Stonecarving of Charles Lloyd Neale

1887

Miller, George C.

Methodist Protestant

1877

Mitchell, George W.

Washington Street

1860

Monroe, Joseph

Methodist Protestant

1882

Moore, Charlie T.

Washington Street

1874

Morgan, William

Trinity Methodist

1869

Morrow, Maria

St. Mary's

1869

Murphy, John

St. Mary's

1867

Murtaugh, Bridget

St. Mary's

1855

Nails, John T.

Washington Street

1878

O'Brien, Mathew

Methodist Protestant

1858

O'Connell, Margaret

St. Mary's

1877

O'Sullivan, Dennis

St. Mary's

1879

O'Sullivan, William

St. Mary's

1894

Padgett, John W.

Washington Street

1865

Page, Charles H.

St. Paul's

1878

Page, Emily Handy

St. Paul's

1863

Plain, Catherine A.

Methodist Protestant

1875

Popham, Mary A.

Christ Church

1871

Powell, Selina

Christ Church

189?

Prendergast, James M.

Washington Street

1874

Prettyman, Ann Lucinda

Methodist Protestant

1870

Prettyman, Margaret Virginia

Presbyterian

1865

Price, Sarah Jane

St. Paul's

1866

Price, William

St. Paul's

1880

Richardson, Ellen

St. Mary's

1880

Richardson, Johanna

St. Mary's

1879

Richardson, Margaret M.

St. Mary's

1867

Riordan, James

St. Mary's

1885

Rudd, Amanda M.

Washington Street

1866

Rudd, Anna R.

Washington Street

1873

Rudd, Charles D.

Washington Street

1885

Rudd, Julia E.

Washington Street

1864

Rudd, Sallie

Washington Street

1860

Shakes, John

Washington Street

1864

Sherwood, Charlotte

Trinity Methodist

1874

Sides, William H.

Presbyterian

1850

Simpson, Emma

Trinity Methodist

1877

Simpson, Henry L.

Trinity Methodist

1872

Simpson, Margaret

Methodist Protestant

1862

Simpson, Mary Anne

Trinity Methodist

1850

Snyder, Mathias

Trinity Methodist

1884

Sprouse, Mary F.

Methodist Protestant

1871

Stain, George

Presbyterian

1869

Stain, Mary V.

Presbyterian

1854

Swain, Lizzie

Presbyterian

1877

T , Martha E.

Washington Street

1886

Tartiselle, Ellen

St. Mary's

1888

Taylor, Belle

Methodist Protestant

1889

Taylor, T.A.

Washington Street

David Vance Finnell

115

1865
1880
1876
1877
1874
1869
1874
1868
1858
1857
1861
1873
1892
1878
1859
1857
1865
1864
188?
18??

Thomas, John A.
Thompson, John T.
Thompson, Margaret A.
Tiger, Lewis

Tr , Julia F.

Travis, Janie
Tyler, John H.
Washington, E. Clarence
Washington, Ellie
Washington, Lanine
Waters, George A.
Webster, Charles F.
Webster, Constance Madella
Webster, John B.
Wedderburn, Dr. A.J.
White, Vachel
Wickop, Sophia
Wood, Lewis Bancroft

_, Elizabeth K.

St. Mary's

Methodist Protestant
Methodist Protestant
Methodist Protestant
Washington Street
Methodist Protestant
Washington Street
Trinity Methodist
Trinity Methodist
Trinity Methodist
Trinity Methodist
St. Mary's
Washington Street
St. Mary's
Trinity Methodist
St. Mary's
Trinity Methodist
Washington Street
Presbyterian
Washington Street

(*) This roster encompasses St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery (1795-96) and the cemeteries
established on the old Spring Garden Farm southwest of Old Town Alexandria: Christ
Church Episcopal (1808), Trinity Methodist (1808), St. Paul's Episcopal (1809),
Presbyterian (1809), Douglass (1827), Methodist Protestant (1836), Washington Street
Methodist Episcopal Church South or Union (1850), Home of Peace/Jewish (1858), and
Bethel (1885).

116

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

KEY

JEWISH CEMETERIES

1-5: Complex inclading
cemeteries of:

Adath Israel
Brith Sholom
Keneseth Israel
Anshei Sfard
Adath Jeshurun

6: Agudath Achim

7: Temple Shalom
section of
Cave Hill Cem.

OTHER CEMETERIES

Cave Hill Cem.

Eastern Cem.

St.Louis Cem.

St.Michaels Cem

Louisville Cem.

Calvary Cem.

Scale:

mssiasiissg

Fig. 1 Vicinity map of Louisville, Kentucky,
showing the locations of principal cemeteries.

117

THE JEWISH CEMETERIES OF LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY:

MIRRORS OF HISTORICAL PROCESSES AND THEOLOGICAL

DIVERSITY THROUGH 150 YEARS

David M. Gradwohl

My scholarly interest in the Jewish cemeteries of Louisville, Ken-
tucky began with a personal journey to that city some seven years ago.
At that time, the questions to which I initially sought answers were par-
ticular ones regarding the social history and genealogy I am organizing
for my paternal grandmother's lineage, the Hilpp family. That first visit
provided answers to some questions and, as is inevitable, raised many
new ones. Even more fascinating are certain apparent universal patterns
- some admittedly impressionistic - observed in Louisville's extant Jew-
ish cemeteries which seem to parallel those my wife, Hanna Rosenberg
Gradwohl, and I are recording in detail in the Jewish cemeteries of
Lincoln, Nebraska, and Des Moines, lowa.i In essence, the separate
cemeteries maintained by Louisville's Jewish temples and synagogues
(see Fig. 1) reflect different historical origins, theological orientations,
and ritual practices within American Judaism. They mirror the processes
and intra-group diversity of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jews
throughout a period of 150 years. In this discussion, I start with a per-
sonal and anecdotal framework and move to a more general and, I hope,
encompassing perspective regarding Judaic identifications and mortu-
ary patterns with a particular emphasis on intra-group variations. My
analytical framework is based upon my disciplinary training in anthro-
pology and my specialization in archaeology, which includes a specific
interest in ethnoarchaeology as a link between material culture and the
non-material aspects of human behavior.^

I begin with a photograph of the Hilpp family taken in St. Joseph,
Missouri in the early 1890s showing my paternal grandmother, Hattie
Hilpp Gradwohl, and her father, Samuel Hilpp (Fig. 2). I ascertained that
Samuel Hilpp was born in the United States in 1846. But oral historical
and archival sources differed as to whether he was born in Louisville,
Kentucky, or in Madison, Indiana. Furthermore, family informants dif-
fered as to the names of Samuel's parents, who had immigrated to this
country from states in what are now the western part of Germany and
the eastern part of France.

118

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

Fig. 2 The Hilpp family, photographed in St. Joseph, Missouri

in the 1890s. Hattie Hilpp Gradwohl, second from right;

Samuel Hilpp, third from right.

Eventually, my quest led to the cemetery of Temple Adath Israel,^
Louisville's oldest Jewish congregation and a bastion of Reform Judaism
in the Ohio River Valley (Fig. 3). To the south of the cemetery's entrance
is a Victorian-style gatehouse which has served as a residence for the
cemetery superintendent; to the north is a limestone structure which for-
merly housed a chapel. Just inside the cemetery, one immediately
observes a variety of tombstone forms and sizes typical of Reform Jew-
ish burial grounds throughout the midwestern and eastern United States
(Fig. 4). Late nineteenth century and early twentieth century gravestone
styles include vertical tablets, columns, obelisks, compound blocks, fam-
ily monuments, and individual markers.^ The Adath Israel cemetery
was originally laid out along the lines of the rural or English landscape
design, with curving avenues and irregularly-shaped sections (see Fig.
5). In some respects it resembles Louisville's famous Cave Hill Cemetery,
although on a smaller scale and with a flatter terrain. ^ The gravestones of
Samuel Hilpp's parents, Elias Hilpp and Thresa Maas Hilpp, are located

David M. Gradwohl

119

Fig. 3 Entrance to the original Adath Israel Cemetery (now The

Temple Cemetery), Louisville, Kentucky, The building on the left

once served as the cemetery superintendent's house; the structure on

the right was a chapel.

Fig. 4 General view inside Adath Israel Cemetery. Note variation in

tombstone style and size; also sculptures in the round, including

human representations.

120

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

(XdA6'-'^M(td Cmi^iieui

Fig. 5 Nineteenth century plat map of Adas (Adath) Israel Cemetery.

Adapted from an original in the archives of

The Temple, Louisville, Kentucky.

David M. Gradwohl

121

Fig. 6 Monuments of Elias Hilpp and Thresa Maas Hilpp

in Adath Israel Cemetery; shown here with their

great-great-grandson, the author.

along the eastern edge of the Adath Israel Cemetery near Preston Street
(Fig. 6). These monuments fit the pattern my wife and 1 have observed in
other midwestern nineteenth century Jewish cemeteries. As is typical for
Reform Jews who came to the United States from Germany and France,
the Hilpp gravestones bear epitaphs in English only and do not include
any Judaic symbols. My great-great grandparents' monuments are of
modest size - probably a reflection of their middling socio-economic sta-
tus. From archival records, I know that at different times in his life Elias
Hilpp was a butcher, tanner, and glue manufacturer (apparently no por-
tion of the animals went to waste!).

The pursuit of relevant documents pertaining to my family's history
led to a book by Herman Landau entitled Adath Louisville: The Story of a
Jewish Community, and to several antecedent archival sources.^ Landau's
book chronicles the history and breadth of Louisville's Jewish inhabi-
tants and institutions over time, and thus provides a good general con-
text for observing and interpreting the city's Jewish cemeteries. Today,
within Louisville's city population of 289,900 and a greater metropolitan
population of 906,200, there are some 9,200 Jewish residents.^ Louisville

122 Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

boasts a large Jewish Community Center with a variety of educational
and recreational facilities, the Shalom Tower, which includes housing
and social services for the elderly along with the offices of the Jewish
Federation, and the extensive Jewish Hospital and medical complex
which serve a large non-sectarian population. The Herman Meyer and
Son Mortuary, on the other hand, provides sectarian final rites of pas-
sage for Louisville's Jews.

Between the womb and the tomb, Louisville's Jews have been served
by a number of congregations. Although Jewish settlers are documented
for Louisville at least as early as the second decade of the nineteenth cen-
tury, it was not until the 1830s that a sufficient number of Jews resided
there to establish a minyan, the minimum of ten Hebrew males over thir-
teen years of age traditionally required for communal prayers.^ Lewis N.
Dembitz states that "About 1838, if I am not mistaken, a beginning of
regular services was made, in some dingy up-stairs room, and some sort
of ritual bath [mikveh] was dug."^ According to Landau, these religious
services were held in the upper rooms of Abraham Tandler's boarding
house, located on Market Street between Second and Third streets.io
Although petitions for the corporate establishment of a Jewish congrega-
tion in Louisville may have been filed with the Kentucky legislature as
early as 1834, it was apparently not until September of 1842 that such a
charter was issued. ii The history and development of the city's incorpo-
rated temples and synagogues between the early 1840s and late 1980s
are displayed in schematic form in Figure 7.

Louisville's first chartered congregation was Adath Israel ("Congre-
gation of Israel"). Landau's book lists the name of Elias Hilpp as one of
the original incorporators of Adath Israel, providing me with a personal
as well as a scholarly interest in Louisville's history. 12 A second Reform
congregation, Brith Sholom ("Covenant of Peace"), was founded in 1880
and continued to 1976 when it merged with Adath Israel into a congre-
gation known as "The Temple," now housed on Brownsboro Road. The
signboard at the new building reads "The Temple. Congregation Adath
Israel Brith Sholom." One group of Reform Jews, however, did not favor
the merger of Adath Israel and Brith Sholom, so they formed an inde-
pendent Reform congregation known as Temple Shalom ("Peace Tem-
ple"), now located on Lowe Road. During the 1870s and 1880s two
Orthodox Jewish congregations formed, namely the B'nai Jacob Syna-
gogue ("Sons of Jacob") and the Beth Hamedrash Hagodol Synagogue

David M. Gradwohl

123

The
Temple

Temple
Shalom

i f

Brith
Sholom

1842 Adath
Israel

REFORM

CONSERVATIVE

Keneseth
Israel

Anshei
Sfard

Agudath
Achim

ORTHODOX

Fig. 7 Time chart showing the historical development of Jewish temples

and synagogues in Louisville, Kentucky between the

early 1840s and late 1980s.

124 Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

("Great House of Study"). In 1926, these two congregations merged into
the Keneseth Israel Synagogue ("Assembly of Israel"), which today
maintains a large building complex on Taylors ville Road. In 1893, a sec-
ond Orthodox congregation, Anshei Sfard Synagogue ("Sephardic
Men"), formed. A third Orthodox congregation, Agudath Achim
("Union of Brothers" or "The Brotherhood"), incorporated in 1922 and
merged with Anshei Sfard in 1971. Today the Anshei Sfard Synagogue is
located on Dutchman's Lane near the Jewish Community Center and
Shalom Tower. Conservative Judaism is represented in Louisville by the
Adath Jeshurun Synagogue ("Congregation of Jeshurun" or "Congrega-
tion of Jacob"), presently located on Woodbourne Avenue. The incorpo-
rated name of Adath Jeshurun begins in 1894, although the roots of the
congregation extend back to 1851 with the establishment of the then-
Orthodox Beth Israel ("House of Israel") Synagogue. Reflecting the
country of origin of many of its members, the congregation was known
for many years as the "Polish Synagogue."i3

The institutional history of Jews in Louisville reflects the broad his-
torical, theological and ritual diversity in Judaism within the United
States. The Adath Israel and Brith Shalom congregations - now repre-
sented by the Temple and Temple Shalom - were founded primarily by
Jews from Western Europe (Germany, Austria, Alsace-Lorraine, and
France). 14 During the early years of these congregations, prayers and ser-
mons were conducted in German and the minutes of the business meet-
ings were recorded in the mother tongue.i^ These Western Ashkenazim
embraced the principles of Reform Judaism which began after the eman-
cipation of Jews in Europe and was transmitted to the United States by
rabbinic leaders such as Max Lilienthal, Isaac Mayer Wise, David Ein-
horn, and Kaufmann Kohler.i^ As specifically codified at the Philadel-
phia Conference of 1869 and the Pittsburgh Conference of 1885, Reform
Judaism emphasized the themes of Prophetic Judaism rather than the rit-
uals mandated by traditional Rabbinic Judaism. Abandoned was the
absolute obligation to follow kosher dietary laws and to wear religious
paraphernalia such as the yarmulke (skull cap), tallis (prayer shawl), and
tefillin (phylacteries). Also rejected was the hope of a return to Zion, that
is, a homeland in Palestine. To emphasize this point. Rabbi Isaac Mayer
Wise once proclaimed, "America is our Zion."i^ Reform Jewish practices
included such things as the integrated seating of men and women dur-
ing religious services, the use of vernacular languages (in particular.

David M. Gradwohl 125

English and German) as well as Hebrew in prayer, and the disavowal of
the so-called priestly castes - the Kohanim, or high priests, and the
Levites, or temple attendant priests. Confirmation, a religious rite of pas-
sage for both girls and boys, replaced the traditional Bar Mitzvah ("Son of
the Commandment") ritual undertaken by boys on their thirteenth
birthdays. Organs, other musical instruments, and choirs were used dur-
ing religious services instead of or in addition to the ritual chanting of
the traditional cantor.

On the other hand, the founders of the Orthodox Synagogues - B'nai
Jacob, Beth Hamedrash Hagodol, Keneseth Israel, Anshei Sfard, and
Agudath Achim - came primarily from Eastern Europe (Poland, the
Baltic countries, and Russia). i^ In addition to the languages of their coun-
tries of origin, most of these people spoke Yiddish, a distinctive dialect of
Middle High German with the incorporation of some Hebrew words.
These Eastern Ashkenazim, for the most part, continued the traditional
practices of Judaism, which include such things as the literal authority of
the rabbis and Talmudic interpretations, the obligatory kosher or dietary
laws, the separation of men and women during services, the wearing of
religious paraphernalia, and continued roles of the Kohanim and Levites in
religious rituals." Today, the Keneseth Israel Synagogue continues to
identify with Orthodoxy but is labelled by Landau as "Traditional with
Mixed Seating."2o Anshei Sfard, contrary to its name, is not a congrega-
tion whose membership is comprised primarily of Sephardim - that is,
Jews who trace their origins back to Spain and Portugal and speak Ladi-
no, a dialect of Spanish mixed with Hebrew. The founders of this congre-
gation were actually Chasidic ("Pious") Jews from southern Russia and
preferred certain Sephardic rituals and modes of prayer as opposed to the
minhagim (customs) of Louisville's existing congregations.^^ Today, how-
ever, it is my understanding that the Sephardic rituals are essentially
restricted to a few customs at the High Holy Days. Basically, the Anshei
Sfard Synagogue follows the Eastern Ashkenazi traditions and is consid-
ered Louisville's most orthodox synagogue.

Louisville's Adath Jeshurun Synagogue represents Conservative
Judaism, a third, middle-of-the-road, "branch" of Judaism which essen-
tially developed in the United States under the rabbinic leadership of
Solomon Schechter, Isaac Leeser, and others. Conservative Judaism
draws from both Orthodox and Reform Judaism.22 Individual adherents
of Conservative Judaism select differently from traditional and liberal

126

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

The Temple

Cemetery

(Adath Israel

& Brith Sholom)

REFORM

OPEN AREA

Keneseth Israel

Cemetery
ORTHODOX

TTTT C U S T LANE

Fig. 8 Sketch map of Jewish cemeteries at the comer of
Preston Street and Locust Lane.

David M. Gradwohl

127

practices. Some follow the dietary rules strictly, others do not. Some
observe the rituals of the priestly castes, others do not. Partly as an
accommodation to the changing roles of women in western society, the
rite of Bas Mitzvah ("Daughter of the Commandment") was instituted for
girls on their thirteenth birthdays.

The diversity within Louisville's historic Jewish congregations and
extant temples and synagogues is reflected in the city's separate Jewish
cemeteries. In establishing settlements throughout the world, each
group of Jews has traditionally expressed its presence by instituting a
place of prayer, a religious school, and a cemetery. David de Sola Pool
underscores this point in discussing the earliest Jewish cemeteries in
New York City:

Fig. 9 Sketch map showing cemeteries of Adath Israel and
Brith Sholom before the 1976 merger.

128

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

In Jewish life, to a greater degree than is commonly found elsewhere, the
establishment of a common consecreated burial ground is a significant sign
of permanent settlement. In medieval Germany the secular authorities
would sometimes name and classify Jewish communities by the cemeter-
ies which they used. The cemetery served as the permanent geographic
nuclear unit of community organization. At least it was immovable prop-
erty, while the living Jew, the quarry of many a brutal man hunt, for his
own protection had to be a movable chattel of the local feudal prince.^^

During the 1820s, some Kentucky settlers of Jewish faith, including at
least one from Louisville, were transported to Cincinnati, Ohio for bur-
ial.24 In the 1850s, Temple Adath Israel had a burial ground, known as
the "Hebrew Cemetery," at the corner of Preston and Woodbine. At
some later date, adjacent to Adath Israel's original cemetery, was a sepa-

Fig. 10 Sketch map showing cemetery of 'The Temple" after the
merger of Adath Israel and Brith Sholom m 1976.

David M. Gradwohl

129

rate burial ground for the members of Adath Jeshurun. Those cemeteries
were destroyed by the construction of the Interstate 65 highway, and the
burials removed to the present cemeteries of those separate congrega-
tions.25 During the late nineteenth century, a third burial ground, known
as the Hebrew Schardein Cemetery, was established on the south side of
Wathen Lane west of Seventh Street Road. According to Landau, that site
was destroyed about 1934 by the construction of the Seagram distillery;
the individuals buried there were re-interred in what is now the ceme-
tery of Keneseth Israel Synagogue.^^ Early on, then, we see that separate
cemeteries were maintained for Louisville's Reform, Conservative, and
Orthodox Jews. That pattern has continued on into the twentieth centu-
ry. Landau states that "Adath Israel purchased The Temple's present
cemetery property in 1873 and that general area has become the site of
all the congregations' cemeteries since then. The other congregations
bought their land at different times, but by 1920 the pattern was estab-
lished. "^^ Today in Louisville there are seven Jewish cemeteries: five
within the mortuary complex at the corner of Preston Street and Locust
Lane, one to the east across Preston Street, and the other a recently-estab-
lished section within the Cave Hill Cemetery (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 11 View within Adath Israel Cemetery; note family monuments,
bas relief carvings, and sculptures in the round.

130

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

The extant cemeteries associated with Louisville's Reform Jews are
located at the northern end of the Preston Street mortuary complex (see
Fig. 8). Prior to 1976, the cemeteries of Temple Adath Israel and Temple
Brith Sholom were separate, each having its own entrance gate opening
out onto Preston Street (see Fig. 9). After 1976, the two cemeteries were
merged and the roadways joined with a connecting link to the south of
Brith Sholom's Frankel Memorial Chapel (see Fig. 10). The reorganiza-
tion of these two cemeteries provides a spatial paradigm for the merged
congregation of the living, now known as The Temple. Brith Sholom's
entry gates were locked, and access to the merged cemeteries is now pro-
vided via the original entrance to Adath Israel's cemetery. The merger
was cast in bronze, so to speak, in a new sign near Adath Israel's old
gatehouse which reads "The Temple Cemetery. Adath Israel Brith
Sholom."

Within these Reform cemeteries - as with those we have observed in
the midwest and on the eastern seaboard - one notes a wide variety of
monument styles: large obelisks, small tablets, compound block and col-
umn monuments, horizontal blocks, and vertical blocks, to name a few.
These styles reflect differences in monumental architecture through
time, in addition, one assumes, to differences in the wealth and social

Fig. 12 Davis family mausoleum in Adath Israel Cemetery.

David M. Gradwohl

131

status of the deceased.^s Large family monuments with individual mark-
ers are common, many of which are elaborately sculpted and often
embellished with decorative curbs and other ancillary elements (see Fig.
11). Not uncommon are central monuments which designate two or
three linked extended families. Mausoleums are also notable features of
these two Reform Jewish cemeteries, as they are in many Reform ceme-
teries elsewhere (Fig. 12). These burial structures are generally prohibit-
ed in Orthodox cemeteries since above-ground disposal of the dead is
traditionally proscribed. ^^ Many of the monuments in the Adath Israel-
Brith Sholom cemeteries are ornately carved in high relief, utilize elabo-
rate sculptures in the round, and even exhibit human images, which are
generally eschewed in Jewish tradition. To be sure, this was an art form
gracing many nineteenth century cemeteries, including, of course. Cave
Hill. As exemplified by the Woloshin monument, however, the practice
continues up to the present time, where it is combined with the latest of
twentieth-century gravestone art technology (Fig. 13).

Typically, the gravestones of Reform Jews contain epitaphs which are
exclusively in the vernacular, in this case, English. If Hebrew occurs at

i^PSl -T ' " -«*:<'^- iIiSih'' __^^^^^

~^^i,p ^^1

i J:

1 \Ooloshia

V —

Fig. 13 Woloshin family monument, Adath Israel Cemetery, showing

contemporary use of sculpture in the round. Note also the

photograph, which is not as frequently found in Reform as in

Conservative and Orthodox Jewish cemeteries.

132

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

Fig. 14 Kern family monument and markers, Brith Sholom Cemetery.

Note use of abbreviated Hebrew phrases and indication of places of

birth (Germany) and death (Louisville, Ky).

David M. Gradwohl

133

ROt'hRT UJOLFF

mfly oJOOd SEPT. 30.1954

30Rn in BRRR RLSPCE,FRRnCE

DIED in L0UI5yiLLE,KV. U.S.A.

Fig. 15 Marker of Robert Wolff, Adath Israel Cemetery, showing place of
birth (Barr, Alsace, France).

all, it is normally limited to the names of the deceased or to abbreviations
of traditional phrases. For example, on the monument of Caroline K.
Lapp and Daniel Kern (Fig. 14), the upper Hebrew epitaph is an abbrevi-
ation of the phrase meaning "Here lies," or "Here is buried." The lower
pentagram in Hebrew stands for the phrase which is translated as "May
his or her soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life." In Reform ceme-
teries. Judaic symbols (such as the Star of David, menorah or cande-
labrum, and Lion of Judah) are not common. Notably lacking as well are
the insignia of the Kohanim or Levites or epigraphic references to the
priestly castes. The rights, duties, and obligations of the Kohanim and
Levites were specifically rejected in the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, the
principal theological statement of nineteenth century Reform Judaism in
the United States. A final practice which is often observed in Reform
cemeteries, including those in Louisville, is a reference to the deceased's
place of birth. Almost invariably, these birthplaces are in Germany, Aus-
tria, or France, reflecting the origins of these Western Ashkenazim (see
Figs. 14 and 15). Typically, such references to the deceased's place of
birth are lacking in Orthodox cemeteries. 1 suspect this may be explained
by two factors: first, the force of rabbinic authority in Orthodoxy, which
tends to result in uniformity; second, the fact that Reform's Pittsburgh
Platform considered Jews "no longer a nation but a religious communi-
ty" whose adherents were citizens of the states in which they resided.

134

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

Fig. 16 View within Keneseth Israel Cemetery. Note relative uniformity
in tombstone size and style in addition to Judaic symbols and extensive

epitaphs in Hebrew.

Early Reform Jews, in fact, rejected the idea that they were living in a
Diaspora ("Exile") and aspired to return to Zion, a Homeland in Pales-
tine. Additionally, it should be noted that the Orthodox Eastern Ashke-
nazim generally fled Europe because of fanatical pogroms, so it is rea-
sonable to expect that they might not want to commemorate those
hateful places on their tombstones.

The Orthodox cemeteries in the Preston Street mortuary complex are
separated from the Reform cemeteries by a broad swale and open space
(see Fig. 8). One cannot drive from The Temple Cemetery to the Kenese-
th Israel Cemetery without going back out onto Preston Street and re-
entering the mortuary complex by a separate gate and driveway. This
geographic separation, I maintain, is a spatial paradigm for the polar dif-
ferences in theological orientation and ritual observances between
Reform and Orthodox Judaism. The spatial analogy to living traditions
is additionally expressed by the fact that the Anshei Sfard Cemetery is
located farthest away from the Reform cemeteries, although the border
between the two Orthodox cemeteries is less obvious. The entrance gates
to Anshei Sfard Cemetery open out onto Locust Lane.

The monument styles and placement of tombstones within the Ortho-
dox cemeteries contrast markedly with the patterns discussed for the
Reform sections (see Fig. 16). There is less diversity in gravestone styles -

David M. Gradwohl

135

Fig. 17 Shavinsky monument, Keneseth Israel Cemetery, showing

Star of David, two shofars (ram's horns), and bunches of grapes

representing wine.

probably reflecting the Orthodox practice of burying the deceased in sim-
ple shrouds (Tachrichim) and uniformly unadorned wooden coffins.^o
According to Maurice Lamm, "Jewish tradition recognizes the democra-
cy of death. It therefore demands that all Jews be buried in the same type
of garment. Wealthy or poor, all are equal before God, and that which
determines their reward is not what they wear, but what they are."3i Each
individual typically has a separate gravestone, as opposed to the family
monuments and individual markers which are frequent in the Reform
cemeteries. Recent memorials intermixed with the older ones include
double horizontal monuments for husband and wife.

Epitaphs found upon markers within the Orthodox cemeteries are
normally in Hebrew, or in Hebrew and English, and typically include
the Hebrew name of the deceased, the Hebrew name of his or her father,
and the deceased's death date in the Jewish ritual calendar.32 The memo-
rial inscriptions usually include the abbreviations for "Here Lies" and
"May his or her soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life." Also con-
tained in the epitaphs may be honorific adjectives or titles of the
deceased, in addition to religious holidays associated with death dates.

136

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

Fig. 18 Kreitman monument, Keneseth Israel Cemetery, showing

Hebrew epitaphs and Judaic symbols, including the Ten

Commandments, two lions of Judah, a Star of David, a menorah, and

a jahrzeit lamp or Ner Tamid (symbolizing remembrance and

Everlasting Light).

Especially on older monuments. Biblical quotations may be incorporated
into the inscriptions.

Judaic symbols are also frequent, in particular the Star (or Shield) of
David, menorah or multi-branched candelabrum, Torah (Scroll of the
Pentateuch), Lion of Judah, and Ten Commandments. A symbol of light,
either a lamp or a single candle, is employed often. The lamp may stand
for the Eternal Light (Ner Tamid), which signifies the eternal presence of
God, but may also symbolize the light which is traditionally kindled in
remembrance of a deceased relative's jahrzeit (death anniversary), which,
as mentioned above, is typically carved on his or her tombstone. On the
occasion of a relative's jahrzeit, it is traditional for Jews to repeat the Kad-
dish ("Holy") prayer. A specific visit may be made to the cemetery for
that purpose, or the prayer may be recited at home in conjunction with
the lighting of a memorial candle.

Other motifs may have no specific Judaic connotations. Fruits, vines,
leaves, and flowers, for example, are part of the general repertoire of

David M. Gradwohl

137

Fig. 19 Green Monument, Keneseth Israel Cemetery, showing

Hebrew epitaphs, a Star of David, and the symbol of the Kohanim

hands raised in priestly benediction. Non-Judaic symbols are also

present. Note as well the use of personal photographs and the pebble

placed intentionally on top of the monument.

American gravestone art and can be observed in the cemeteries of most
religious and secular groups. They are often, in fact, already sculpted on
the gravestones which monument dealers have on hand to sell to cus-
tomers as "stock" items. One exception, however, may be the bunches of
grapes I have observed on the tombstones of Jews in Louisville and else-
where in the mid western and eastern United States. In these instances, I
strongly suspect that the grape bunches symbolize the "fruit of the vine"
which is blessed, in the form of wine, by the Kiddiish ("Sanctification")
prayer before or during Sabbaths and the holidays.

It is not unusual to see several Judaic symbols and other motifs on
the same monument. The Shavinsky monument, for example, exhibits a
Star of David, two bunches of grapes, and two Shofars or ritual ram's
horns (Fig. 17). The Shofar is ceremonially sounded at the High Holy
Days {Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kip-pur, the Day of
Atonement) and, in some Orthodox congregations, at other times. In
Biblical days, the Shofar announced the approach of Sabbath, the begin-
ning of each Hebrew month {Rosh Hodesh or "New Moon") and various

138

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

Fig. 20 Monument of Eva Slung, Keneseth Israel Cemetery. Hebrew

epitaph includes a reference to the deceased's father's role as a Levite,

or temple attendant priest.

David M. Gradwohl

139

Fig. 21 Grave house of Rabbi Asher Lipman Zarchy (Louisville's

Orthodox Chief Rabbi) and his wife, Molly Zarchy. Inside this mortuary

enclosure, the deceased are buried in the ground and marked with

individual vertical monuments and

horizontal ledger stones.

other events. Landau notes that Simon Shavinsky long served the Kene-
seth Israel congregation as Shamas, that is, the synagogue's sexton and
caretaker of ritual objects.33 It is possible that the Shofar symbol on Simon
Shavinsky's monument symbolizes his ceremonial duties at Keneseth
Israel Synagogue. It is also possible that his family name shares etymo-
logical roots with the Hebrew term for ram's horn and that the Shofar
symbol is a "play" on words, following a practice exhibited on tomb-
stones in European Jewish cemeteries.^* The Kreitman monument also
exhibits a number of Judaic insignia: two Lions of Judah, the Ten Com-
mandments, and the Jahrzeit memorial, or everlasting light (Fig. 18). Sam
Kreitman is symbolized by the Star or Shield of David, which is typical-
ly associated with males.^s His wife, Fannie Kreitman, is memorialized
by the candelabrum, which is typically associated with females, the ritu-
al kindlers of the Sabbath and holiday lights. On other gravestones one
can observe a distinctive artistic motif consisting of the hands raised in
priestly benediction which symbolizes the Kohnnim (see Fig. 19). Refer-
ences to the Kohanim are also made in the epitaphs: for example, the

140

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

name of Morris Green (Fig. 19) is rendered "Reb Moshe Bar Shlomo
Hakohen" (or "Mr. Moses son of Solomon the High Priest")- Although I
did not observe the insignia of the Levites on gravestones in Louisville,
references to the Temple Attendant Priests do occur in epitaphs: for
example, the epitaph of Eva Slung (Fig. 20) records that her father was
Reb Mordecai Zvi Halevy - Mr. Mordecai Zvi, the Levite or Temple Atten-
dant Priest.

Pictures of the deceased printed on porcelain are frequently observed
in Louisville's Orthodox and Conservative Jewish cemeteries (Figs. 19
and 20). I have observed this practice elsewhere in Orthodox and Con-
servative Jewish cemeteries as well as in Christian cemeteries. The use of
human images is generally discouraged in Orthodox Judaism. Accord-
ing to Lamm, "Photographs mounted on monuments are not in good
taste. Some authorities maintain that they are prohibited.^^ In this
instance, the force of folk tradition seems to outweigh rabbinic proscrip-
tion. In the Keneseth Israel and Anshe Sfard cemeteries one also notes
the presence of pebbles placed on monuments (see Fig. 19). This practice
is not uncommon in Orthodox and Conservative cemeteries throughout
the mid western and eastern United States. The pebbles function as ritual
"calling cards," and may be a vestige of the time when funeral atten-

Fig. 22 View inside Adath Jeshurun Cemetery. Note extensive use of
shrubs and floral ground covers over the graves.

David M. Gradwohl

141

dants actually filled up the grave pit.^^ Even today, mourners accompa-
nying Orthodox funeral processions to the cemetery may place ritual
shovelfuls of soil on top of the coffin.

A mausoleum-like structure in the middle of the Keneseth Israel
cemetery (Fig. 21) initially shocked my eye - especially considering that
the memorial is associated with Asher Lipman Zarchy, identified as the
"Chief Rabbi" of Louisville's Orthodox Jews. A closer investigation
through the doors of this structure (unfortunately not within the range
of my camera's light meter) revealed that Rabbi Zarchy and his wife are
buried, as per Orthodox tradition, in the ground. This matter is clarified
by Lamm: "A mausoleum is permissable only if the deceased is buried in
the earth itself, and the mausoleum is built around the plot of earth. This
was frequently done for scholars, communal leaders, those who have
contributed heavily to charity, and people of renown."^^ The Zarchy's
graves inside the structure are covered with ledger stones and also
marked by monuments. This burial pattern has been described for ceme-
teries in Eastern Europe.^' More than mausoleums per se, these struc-
tures are actually "mortuary houses" within which the deceased are
inhumed. Other ledger stones are observed in the Louisville cemeteries.

Fig. 23 Weisberg monument in Adath Jeshunm Cemetery. The bronze
sculpture depicts the Tree of Life in addition to individual Biblical stories.

142

Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

Fig. 24 View inside Agudath Achim Cemetery. Note relative uniformity
of tombstone style and size in addition to Judaic symbols and Hebrew

epitaphs.

Along the Atlantic seaboard, in the Caribbean, and in Europe, ledger
stones are associated with Sephardic Jews.^o However, this specific asso-
ciation is probably not demonstrable in Louisville.

The fifth cemetery in the Preston Street complex is the Adath Jeshu-
run Cemetery, where Louisville's Conservative Jews are buried. As
might be expected, the gravestones reflect both Orthodox and Reform
patterns: many single, fairly uniform monuments, some family monu-
ments with Hebrew and English epitaphs, and some gravestones with
references to the Kohanim. Particularly distinctive in Adath Jeshurun's
well-manicured cemetery are decorative grave cover plantings, includ-
ing ivy, begonias, low privet hedges, barberries, and ribbon grass (see
Fig. 22). Rivaling the diversity of monument styles in the Reform ceme-
teries are a good many modern stone memorials and bronze sculptures
which are indeed works of art in their own right (see, for example. Fig.
23). In addition, the Adath Jeshurun Cemetery includes a cenotaph for
the individuals who were removed from the Woodbine cemetery during
the aforementioned highway construction activities.

Across Preston Street to the east is the cemetery of the former Agu-
dath Achim Synagogue which merged with Anshei Sfard in 1971 (Fig.

David M. Gradwohl

143

§mm^

ifiiisii!

Mid.

'iiJf ■>««*»

»te^^^fiir»

Fig. 25 Temple Shalom Section in Cave Hill Cemetery. Hanna Rosenberg
Gradwohl observing flush markers, all of which are bronze.

24). Today the Anshei Sfard Synagogue maintains the Agudath Achim
cemetery. This cemetery's monuments and their epitaphs reflect the
Orthodox Jewish tradition. In essence, one observes a relative uniformi-
ty of gravestone size and style, the preponderance of single tombstones
as opposed to family monuments and individual markers, the frequent
use of Judaic symbols, extensive epitaphs in Hebrew in addition to or
instead of English, and the presence of photographs.

Louisville's Cave Hill Cemetery is well known for its grand rural
landscape plan, extensive arboretum and array of decorative shrubs and
flowers, and impressive monuments of notable citizens.^i Here one can
study a wide array of innovative monumental art styles and can follow
the "yellow brick line" to the stone and bronze memorial of Kentucky
Fried Chicken czar. Colonel Harland Sanders. Less noticeable is Temple
Shalom's recently-established memorial garden section, in which only
flat bronze markers are permitted (Fig. 25). Some of the markers exhibit
Judaic symbols in addition to secular motifs, while others lack any Jew-
ish insignia at all. Most of the markers contain inscriptions in English
only, though on some the deceased's name is rendered in Hebrew as well
as Roman letters.

144 Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

What we see in the Jewish cemeteries of Louisville and cities else-
where throughout the midwestern and eastern United States is the mate-
rial manifestation of non-material cultural phenomena. Represented
here are the tangible indicators of individual cognitive beliefs and group
ideational systems - the kinds of data and specific associations which
normally elude the archaeologist studying prehistoric or early historic
time periods. In this case, Louisville's Jewish cemeteries clearly express a
number of aspects of Judaism as a religion which transcend time and
space. Through one analytical lens, it is possible to identify recognizable
group patterns which have been referred to as "ethnicity" and the exis-
tence of "ethnic groups." I use those terms here cautiously, and in the
strict sense defined by George DeVos:

An ethnic group is a self-perceived group of people who hold in common
a set of traditions not shared by others with whom they are in contact.
Such traditions typically include "folk" religious beliefs and practices,
language, a sense of historical continuity, and common ancestry or place
of origin. The group's actual history often trails off into legend or mythol-
ogy, which includes some concept of an unbroken biological-genetic con-
tinuity, sometimes regarded as giving special characteristics to the
group.*2

As a social anthropologist, DeVos goes on to explain some of the dimen-
sions along which ethnicity may be manifested. His words are particu-
larly meaningful to the ethnoarchaeologist who is looking for the possi-
ble linkage of cognitive domains with material culture:

. . . the ethnic identity of a group of people consists of their subjective sym-
bolic or emblematic use of any aspect of culture, in order to differentiate
themselves from other groups. These emblems can be imposed from the
outside or embraced from within. Ethnic features such as language or
clothing or food can be considered emblems, for they show others who
one is and to what group one belongs. A Christian, for example, wears a
cross; a Jew the Star of David .^^

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Jews living in
Louisville have identified themselves by the creation of various reli-
gious, educational, recreational, fraternal, medical and philanthropic
institutions. They also established separate cemeteries for the burial of
their dead. These cemeteries, as specially consecrated sacred spaces, are
geographic indicators of ethnicity. Their physical limits are paradigms of
the /nfer-group boundary-maintaining mechanisms which one notes

David M. Gradwohl 145

among the living. In itself, burial in any one of Louisville's Jewish ceme-
teries is a statement of some Judaic identification or affiliation. Within
these cemeteries, there are additional Judaic indicators on the grave-
stones: general religious symbols, specific emblems of the priestly castes,
and epitaphs in Hebrew.

Through a second analytical lens, one can ascertain additional and
perhaps even more significant patterns which are reflective of intra-
group diversity. For the most part, this aspect of human behavior has
been ignored or under-estimated in regard to the study of ethnicity.
Throughout the world, Jews do not constitute a single, monolithic, socio-
cultural entity. Even in Louisville, there are internal dimensions of diver-
sity reflected in the different temples and synagogues and their individ-
ual cemetery areas. The separation of Reform, Conservative, and
Orthodox cemeteries in the mortuary complex at the corner of Preston
Street and Locust Lane is a subtle and yet dramatic spatial analog of the
patterns manifested among the living Jews in Louisville. It is perhaps
not surprising that death and life reflect each other in these ways when
one considers some of the Hebrew euphemisms for cemetery: Beth A
Haim, for instance, translates as "House of Life," and Beth Olam means
"House of Eternity. "44

In conclusion, my journey to Louisville resulted in finding out more
about my great grandfather, Samuel Hilpp, although the archival as well
as oral historical sources still differ as to his place of birth. En route, 1
ascertained that Samuel's parents were Elias and Thresa Hilpp, who lie
buried in the cemetery of Temple Adath Israel, an institution they helped
to incorporate in 1842. During the following 150 years in Louisville,
other temples and synagogues were incorporated and other cemeteries
established. These cemeteries provide an impressive mirror and a tangi-
ble historical record of the diversity of Louisville's Jews in regard to
national origins, theological orientations, and ritual practices over the
course of a century and a half. The revelation of those facts transformed
my personal quest into part of a more global academic expedition.

146 Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

NOTES

I would like to thank my wife, Hanna Rosenberg Gradwohl, co-principal investigator on
our Jewish cemetery research project, for her help with the field observations and archival
work in Louisville. Gratefully acknowledged is information provided by Elizabeth Wein-
berg (formerly a resident of Madison, Indiana, now of Louisville), Jack Benjamin (adminis-
trator at The Temple), Jack M. "Sonny" Meyer (President of Herman Meyer and Son Funer-
al Directors), and Lee Shai Weissbach (Professor of History, University of Louisville). Lance
M. Foster prepared the final drawings for Figures 1, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Aside from Figure 2, all
photographs were taken by the author except Figure 6, which was taken by the author's
wife.

1. David Mayer Gradwohl and Hanna Rosenberg Gradwohl, "That is the Pillar of
Rachel's Grave Unto this Day: An Ethnoarchaeological Comparison of Two Jewish
Cemeteries in Lincoln, Nebraska," in Persistence and Flexibility: Anthropological Perspec-
tives on the American Jewish Experience, Walter P. Zenner, ed. (Albany, New York, 1988),
223-259; David M. Gradwohl, "Houses of Life, Abodes of Eternity: A Preliminary Eth-
noarchaeological Perspective on Six Jewish Cemeteries in Des Moines, Iowa," Paper
delivered at the 67th Annual Meeting of the Central States Anthropological Society,
Ames, Iowa, March 24, 1991.

2. The ethnoarchaeological approach employed in this study follows the precedent of a
number of authors over the past twenty-five years. In particular, see Richard A.
Gould, Living Archaeology (Cambridge, England, 1980); Richard A. Gould, Explorations
in Ethnoarchaeologi/ (Albuquerque, 1978); Richard A. Gould, "Living Archaeology: The
Ngatatjara of Western Australia," Soutlnoestern Journal of Anthropiologx/ 24:2 (1968): 101-
122; "Archaeology of the Point S. George Site and Tolowa Prehistory," University of
California Publications in Anthropwlogi/ 4 (1966). In addition, note William H. Adams,
Silcott, Washington: Ethnoarchaeology of a Rural American Community (Washington State
University Laboratory of Anthropology, Reports of Investigations 54, 1977); Lewis
Binford, Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology (New York, 1978); John F. Yellen, "Settlement Pat-
terns of the !Kung: An Archaeological Perspective," in Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers, R.B.
Lee and I. DeVore, eds. (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), 47-72. In this paper I follow the def-
inition of ethnoarchaeology as "The study of living societies by archaeologists . . . Eth-
noarchaeologists document events from two perspectives: the artifacts involved and
associated behaviors and beliefs" articulated by William L. Rathje and Michael B.
Schiffer, Archaeology (New York, 1982), 391, 196. As an academician, and also a partic-
ipant observer in Judaism, I approach the data base from both the "etic" and "emic"
perspectives: see Marvin Harris, The Rise of Anthropological Theory (New York, 1969),
574-582, and Marvin Harris, Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture
(NewYork, 1980), 32-41.

3. This temple was originally incorporated under the name Adas Israel. Over the years,
the name officially changed to Adath Israel. This shift reflects differences in dialect
and historical usages pertaining to the transliteration of the twenty-second letter in
the Hebrew alphabet ("sof" or "tof") and the subsequent pronunciation of the letter
as an English "s," "t," or "th."

4. Edwin S. Dethlefsen, "The Cemetery and Culture Change: Archaeological Focus and

David M. Gradwohl 147

Ethnographic Perspective," in Modern Material Culture: The Arcliaeolog\j of Us, R.A.
Gould and M.B. Schiffer, eds. (New York, 1981), 137-159; Edwin S. Dethlefsen, "Social
Commentary from the Cemetery," Natural History 86:6 (1977): 32-39.

5. See Samuel W. Thomas, Cave Hill Cemeterij: A Pictorial Guide and Its History (Louisville,
1985).

6. Herman Landau, Adath Louisville: The Story of Jewish Community (Louisville, 1981). See
also: Lewis N. Dembitz, "Jewish Beginnings in Kentucky," Publications of the American
Jewish Historical Society 1 (1893): 99-101; Lewis N. Dembitz, "Kentucky," The Jeivish
Encyclopedia, VII (New York, 1906), 467-468; Israel T. Naamani, "Louisville," Ency-
clopaedia Judaica, 11 (New York, 1971), 520-522; Jewish Historical Society, A Histori/ of
the Jews of Louisville, Kentucky (New Orleans, 1901); Joseph Rauch, "Louisville," The
Universal Jeivish Encyclopedia, 7 (New York, 1969), 209-210.

7. Barry Kosmin and Jeffrey Scheckner, "Jewish Population in the United States, 1990,"
American Jewish Yearbook 1991, 91 (Philadelphia, 1991), 212.

8. Landau, 5-6; Rauch, 209; Dembitz, "Kentucky," 467.

9. Dembitz, "Jewish Beginnings," 101.

10. Landau, 20.

11. Naamani, 521-522; Landau, 19-21.

12. Landau, 20; in this source the family name is incorrectly spelled as "Hilp." The Jewish
Historical Society (p. 15) also lists Ehas Hilpp as an incorporator, but spells the family
name incorrectly as "Hillp."

13. According to Professor Lee Shai Weissbach (personal communication dated May 27,
1992), a new Orthodox synagogue has been formed very recently, bringing
Louisville's Jewish congregations to six in number. The congregation members meet
in a converted house in the vicinity of the Jewish Community Center. Although the
new synagogue is called Beth Israel, it is not directly connected to the nineteenth cen-
tury congregation which also bore that name and which evolved into the present-day
Conservative Congregation Adath Jeshurun. The new Orthodox synagogue appar-
ently has not yet established its own cemetery.

14. cf. Priscilla Fishman, The Jexvs of the United States (New York, 1973); Oscar Handlin,
Adventure in Freedom: Three Hundred Years of Jewish Life in America (New York, 1954);
Rufus Learsi, The Jeivs in America: A Historx/ (Cleveland, 1954); Lee J. Levinger, A His-
ton/ of Jews in the United States (Cincinnati, 1944).

15. Landau, 2, 20, 27.

16. Joseph L. Blau, Judaism in America: From Curiosity to Third Faith (Chicago, 1976); Syl-
van D. Schwartzman, Reform Judaism Then and Noiv (New York, 1971); William B. Sil-
verman, Basic Reform Judaism (New York, 1970).

148 Jewish Cemeteries of Louisville

17. David Philipson, "Personal Contacts with the Founder of the Hebrew Union Col-
lege," Hebrew Union College Annual 11 (1967): 15.

18. Landau, 2-3.

19. Bernard J. Bamberger, The Ston/ of Judaism (New York, 1971), 312-315; 347-350.

20. Landau, 2.

21. Ibid.,5\.

22. Moshe Davis, The Emergence of Conservative Judaism: The Historical School in Nineteenth
Century America (Philadelphia, 1963); Herbert Parzen, Architects of Conservative
Judaism (New York, 1964); Marshall Sklare, Conservative Judaism: An American Reli-
gious Movement (New York, 1972).

23. Emphasis added. David de Sola Pool, Portraits Etched in Stone: Early Jeivish Settlers
1682-1831 (New York, 1952), 6-7.

24. Landau, 16.

25. Ihid., 16-17.

26. Ibid., 17.

27. Rnd., 16.

28. Richard V. Francaviglia, "The Cemetery as an Evolving Cultural Landscape," Annals
of the Association of American Geographers 61: 2 (1971): 501-509; see also Dethlefsen,
"The Cemetery and Culture Change."

29. Maurice Lamm, The Jewish Waif in Death and Mourning (New York, 1981), 57.

30. Ibid., 16-17.

31. Ibid., 7.

32. Ibid., 188-92; Isaac Klein, A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice (New York, 1979), 295-96;
Leo Trepp, The Complete Book of Jeivish Observance (New York, 1980), 338-39.

33. Landau, 12.

34. Jan Herman, Jewish Cemeteries in Bohemia and Moravia (Brno: Council of Jewish Com-
munities, Czech Socialist Republic, ND [ca. 1980]), Figures 68, 69, and 70; Otto Bocher,
The Jewish Cemetery of Worms (Worms, Gemany, 1988), Figures 11 and 12.

35. According to Landau, p. 10, Max Kreitman ran what for many years was the only
kosher meat market in Louisville.

David M. Gradwohl 149

36. Lamm, 191.

37. Otto Bocher, Der Alten Jiiden Friedhof in Worms (Neuss, Germany, 1976).

38. Lamm, 57.

39. Arthur Levy, Judische Gmlvnalkunst in Osteuwpa (Berlin, 1923).

40. David Davidovich, "Tombstones," Encyclopaedia Judaica, 15 (New York, 1971), 1222-
23.

41. Thomas op. cit.; Plants of Distinction: Cave Hill Cemetery, Brochure prepared by Cave
Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky (ND).

42. George DeVos, "Ethnic Pluralism: Conflict and Accommodation," in Ethnic Identity:
Cultural Continuities and Change, George DeVos and Lola Romanucci-Ross, eds. (Palo
Alto, CaUfornia, 1975), 9.

43. Ibid., 16.

44. Meir Ydit, "Cemetery," Encyclopaedia Judaica, 5 (New York, 1971), 272.

150

Lamson Family Carvers

Fig. 1 Mary Rous, 1714, Charlestown

151

THE LAMSON FAMILY GRAVESTONE CARVERS
OF CHARLESTOWN AND MALDEN, MASSACHUSEnS

Ralph L. Tucker

OVERVIEW

The Lamson family of stonecutters who Hved in the Maiden/
Charlestown area of Massachusetts was one of the earliest and most
important producers of colonial gravestones. Of the half dozen stonecut-
ters in the Boston area who carved something more than lettering on
gravestones prior to 1700, Joseph Lamson was one of the best and most
prolific. The family as a whole was not only prolific in their carving, but
also cut some of the most interesting and beautifull stones to be found in
all New England. Beginning about 1677 with the work of Joseph Lam-
son, and continuing up to the 1800s with several members of the fourth
generation, the Lamsons produced stones that can be found from Nova
Scotia on the north to Charleston, South Carolina on the south.

The early stones of Joseph Lamson were rather simple, lacking side
borders, framing for the inscription, or any embellishment other than
the stern winged skull, which almost always had eyebrows. Before long,
however, side borders, frieze, and finial decorations were added, and
several death-related items such as coffins, hourglasses, and crossbones
began to appear. By the time of the 1692 Salem witchcraft craze, Joseph
was using death imps on his stones. The craze may have influenced his
work, for at that time he abruptly ceased carving imps and only after ten
years resumed using them. By the early 1700s, elaborate framed inscrip-
tions, floral and fruit side panels, and drapery above the skulls may be
found. Faces appeared in the finials, at first rather crudely carved, but by
1704 very lifelike and rendered in both male and female versions. This
development would continue, and by 1709 full busts began to appear in
the finials. As Joseph's sons became skilled, they took over the business
and developed their own variations on these styles. The third and fourth
generations added their ideas, so that in time portraits, figures, and,
finally, trees and urns were carved on stones made by this family.

JOSEPH LAMSON

Joseph Lamson was born in 1658 at Ipswich, Massachusetts, his
father William having come from England in 1634 and married a local

152 Lamson Family Carvers

girl, Sarah Ayres of Haverhill.^ When WilHam died in 1659, shortly after
Joseph's birth, the family of eight children was broken up, and Joseph's
earliest years were unsettled. When he was two years old his mother
married Thomas Hartshorne of Reading (whose son John later became
the first stonecutter of the Merrimack River Valley). The marriage caused
a dispute over the care of the children who had been put out to other
families, and over their rights to property. This brought about a court
action, the details of which are lacking, though judging from later events
all was eventually settled.

An early record indicates that Joseph, at the age of seventeen, served
under Captain Turner on the Connecticut River expedition in March
1675/6, during King Phillip's War.2 On December 12, 1679, he married
Elizabeth Mitchell of Charlestown, probably having finished an appren-
ticeship in stonecutting, as we can date some of his earliest stones to the
late 1670s. He and Elizabeth had eight children, all born in Maiden.
Shortly after Elizabeth died on June 10, 1703, Joseph married Hannah
(Mousal) Welch, the widow of the carver Thomas Welch who lived near-
by. After Hannah's death in 1713, he married again in 1715, this time to
Dorothy (Hett) Mousal. There were no children by either of these later
marriages.

In 1695, Joseph was made a proprietor and freeholder in Maiden,
where he was later voted a tithingman and sealer of leather. In 1699, he
took an appeal for Maiden to the Great and General Court, while in 1701
he was on a committee to lay out a road and in 1702 on a committee to
see about the Meeting House. In January, 1720, he became the only sur-
viving son of William, and was appointed "admr. de Bonis non" of his
father's estate. The local histories of Maiden and Charlestown during
this period give frequent references to Joseph and his family.

It is recorded that Joseph bought property and a house in Maiden in
1682/3, where he is variously listed as a mariner, cordwainer, and stone-
cutter. There are a number of references to the property bounds in early
Maiden mentioning the Lamson shop and property, as well as the prop-
erty of Thomas Welch and Joseph Whittemore. Of special interest is the
reference to "... Thomas Welches house, ware mr Lamson now lives ..."
There are also intriguing references to Quarry Hill on Menotomy Road,
where the stone on which the Lamsons carved was probably obtained.
Also of interest is reference to a "wharffe and landing place" by Mr Lam-
son's shop, from which he probably shipped his work. A reference to

Ralph L. Tucker 153

Whittemore's land may be to land owned by a local ship captain and
stonecutter who probably worked with Lamson. One who is conversant
with the early history of the town could probably locate these sites.'
There is some confusion as to whether the Lamson shop was in fact
located in Charlestown or in Maiden. The residences and shop were
apparently in Maiden, as noted above, but there are several references in
probate records to members of the Lamson family as "of Charlestown."
The dividing line was a narrow creek, and later homes may well have
been on the Charlestown shore.

Joseph died August 23, 1722, at the age of 64, in Charlestown, where
the gravestone carved for him by one of his sons still stands (see Fig. 8).
In his will, dated July 16, 1722 and proved September 21, 1722, he calls
himself "stonecutter. "^ He mentions his wife Dorothy, son John, son
William, son Nathaniel, son Joseph and his children, and son Caleb. His
inventory totaled £203, the value of the house being £140.

Of his five sons, Nathaniel and Caleb became stonecutters in their
father's shop, and son William, who removed to Stratford, Connecticut
in 1717, may have worked in his father's shop earlier. Lamson stones
appear in and near Stratford, some identical to the Charlestown stones,
as well as later ones carved on Connecticut sandstone that probably
were made by a member of the family there. Joseph's son, Joseph Jr., was
involved in the invasion of Port Royal in 1710 and survived the sinking
of the troopship Caesar along with the carver William Custin, but while
they may have worked at carving together, there is no evidence to that
effect.5 At least two grandsons and three great-grandsons of Joseph are
known to have been stonecarvers. We are able to identify eight Lamsons
who were stonecutters, and there may well have been others. I have been
unable to locate much information on these later generations aside from
the usual birth, marriage, and death data.

BEGINNINGS

The earliest New England gravemarkers were simple boulders or
slabs which were only rarely lettered or ornamented. There is also evi-
dence that wooden gravemarkers were used, and that when they disin-
tegrated and carved stone markers became available the wood was
replaced with "proper" gravestones, which were at first upright slabs
with plain lettering, often crudely executed. The earliest and most com-
mon carving, aside from mere lettering, is the death's-head, a winged

154 Lamson Family Carvers

skull motif which dates from about 1670. For over one hundred years
this death's-head was omnipresent, and only a few other varieties of
style are to be found. In rare cases a coat of arms is used^ (Fig. 1), and on
certain occasions a cherub (or winged face). Only with the coming of the
tree and urn stones after the American Revolution does the death's -head
finally become obsolete.

Examples of Lamson styles can easily be found at the Bell Rock Bur-
ial Ground in Maiden, the Phipps Street Burial Ground in Charlestown,
and the Cambridge Burial Ground. These graveyards, which were those
nearest to the Lamson shop, contain not only Joseph's work but also that
of the succeeding three Lamson generations. In fact, the overwhelming
majority of stones in these three burial grounds represent the work of the
Lamson shop. Using the stones mentioned in the probate records and
those made for his immediate family, Joseph Lamson's basic styles can
be definitely determined. Sorting by date, moreover, one can separate
out the stones Joseph made before the sons were old enough to carve in
order to determine which can be attributed to him alone. In any case, the
early stones of the sons are rather crudely cut and only with time become
comparable with their father's work.

In the Boston area there are stones dated from 1650 to the 1670s -with
only lettering, and without borders or other carving. It is difficult to
attribute authorship to these stones. It is possible that some of these were
made by the Old Stonecutter (see below), or by Joseph as an apprentice,
but most are dated before Joseph could have been trained as a carver. On
the other hand, because a number of the stones could be backdated,
Joseph may have in fact carved some of them.

By the late 1670s one can find stones with a browed and winged skull
- a death's-head - in the tympanum, complemented by crossbones in
one finial and an hourglass in the other. Some of these are certainly by
the Old Stonecutter, but others are probably by Lamson working as his
apprentice. By the 1680s there are over fifty stones of this variety that
have definite Lamson hallmarks, such as his typical drapery (which will
be described later). It is probable that Thomas Welch, and possibly
Joseph Whittemore, also carved such stones.

Joseph Lamson probably learned his trade from the "Old Stonecut-
ter" mentioned by Harriette Forbes in her pioneering work. Gravestones
of Early New England.' The Old Stonecutter has had little study, and we
know nothing about him aside from his work, which can usually be dif-

Ralph L. Tucker 155

ferentiated from that of other early unidentified carvers. He probably
started carving in the area about 1650 and continued into the 1690s,
although these dates are difficult to state with certainty. He appears on
the scene already an unusually competent carver possessing a variety of
styles. His winged skulls can usually be recognized by their eyebrows, a
distinctive feature few other carvers used. There is some speculation that
the Old Stonecutter was located north of the Charles River, as was Lam-
son, in either Charlestown or Cambridge. Forbes describes Lamson's
work as "so distinctive that it is possible to distinguish it from that of all
other workers... "8 Though differences are also apparent, I believe,
because of certain distinctive similarities in their styles, that Lamson
apprenticed under the Old Stonecutter.^

Similarities between Lamson and the Old Stonecutter

1. Both used at early dates (1670s-1690s) the dominant element of
winged skulls with eyebrows that often had hooked ends. Eye-
brows are very rare on the stones of other carvers.

2. Both on a few occasions featured winged faces (or cherubs) instead
of the more common winged skulls (or death's-heads).

3. Both used, especially in the frieze, secondary death symbols such as
crossbones, picks and shovels, palls, scythes, hourglasses, coffins,
or darts of death to an extent greater than that of other contempo-
rary carvers.

4. Both were apparently the only carvers who used death imps (small
naked figures carrying palls, coffins, darts, or hourglasses) on their
stones.

5. Both carved faces in the finials. The early faces are nearly identical,
but Lamson's show a definite development and improvement. Few
other carvers used such faces, and where they did, they are easily
differentiated.

Differences between Lamson and the Old Stonecutter

1. The Old Stonecutter used a variety of classical Latin phrases on his
stones, while Lamson used only "memento mori" and "fugit hora,"
these with some regularity.

2. The Old Stonecutter sometimes carved a skull having a flattened or
indented top, often with a vertical line through the top of the skull.
Lamson used a more rounded top for his skulls, and no vertical line.

156 Lamson Family Carvers

3. The Old stonecutter sometimes made elaborately shaped stones,
while Lamson always used a simpler shaped stone with a large cen-
tral lobe and two smaller side lobes at the top.

4. The Old Stonecutter regularly utilized a numeral one having two
spirals extending from its base, while Lamson rarely, if ever, did.

5. The Old Stonecutter on occasion used a letter " T" of an old-fash-
ioned style somewhat resembling the capitol letter "E ," a practice
which Lamson rarely, if ever, employed.

6. The Old Stonecutter and other contemporary carvers rarely framed
their inscriptions. While Lamson's earliest stones also lack frames,
he soon began to use frames regularly, some of which become
rather elaborate.

7. The Old Stonecutter often placed square shapes in the rounded
finials, while Lamson invariably used round shapes in his rounded
finials (there is a sense of balance here exhibited by Lamson which
the Old Stonecutter lacked).

8. Lamson employed many varieties of bottom borders, while the Old
Stonecutter used few bottom borders.

9. Lamson frequently used a bordered frieze between the tympanum
and the inscription, while the Old Stonecutter rarely did.

10. The Old Stonecutter made several elaborate stones copying printed
woodcuts of the figures of death and of father time. There exist no
stones carved by Lamson which can be traced to printed material.

11. The Old Stonecutter's carved wings often feature horizontal upper
feathers and vertical lower ones, while Lamson's carved feathers all
are in the same general direction.

12. The Old Stonecutter on a few of his earliest stones used wingless
skulls. Lamson's skulls are all winged.

DOCUMENTATION OF STONES

Harriette Forbes was the first to identify Joseph Lamson as a grave-
stone carver, and she photographed many of his stones as early as 1924.
She also went through the probate records of the period to identify not
only Lamson but also other early New England carvers, setting a stan-
dard of research which stands to this day.i" In order to document the fact
that Joseph Lamson was indeed the carver of the stones studied, I made
a further check of the source material. The Massachusetts probate court
records of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex counties contain information

Ralph L. Tucker 157

about payments to carvers, some specifically for gravestones and others
for unspecified work. There are, for example, over two hundred known
references in probate records to payments to members of the Lamson
family, many of which specify that the payment is for gravestones.
Unfortunately, few of these are for Joseph because the earliest records
are not as numerous or as comprehensive as the later ones, and those
mentioning gravestones before 1715 are rare. Once a carver has been
identified, however, one can watch for his name in the inventories and
other records. Sometimes a stone is reported as paid for with no mention
of the carver: if the stone is later located and identified as the work of a
given carver, we can build up quite a list of his stones. There is sufficient
evidence to start us on our search, however, as the following data will
show:

1. In 1705, the estate of Samuel Fletcher of Chelmsford paid Joseph
Lamson £0.24.0, presumably for gravestones. Samuel's stone is still
extant and is a Lamson type stone.^^

2. In 1709, Joseph Lamson was paid £1.8.0 by the estate of Lt. Thomas
Pratt of Charlestown "for gravestones. "^^ While the headstone,
unfortunately, has not been located, the footstone is extant and has
the distinctive Lamson fig in the tympanum, together with Thomas'
name and rank (Fig. 2).

3. The 1709 Lt. John Hammond and the 1711 Mrs. Prudence Hammond
stones in Watertown cost the estate £0.21.0 and £0.13.0 respectively,
paid to Joseph Lamson.^^ goth of these stones still stand and can be
used to identify Joseph's style of carving.

4. The 1718 stone for Richard Kaets, Concord, cost £2.12.0, which was
paid to Joseph Lamson for "gravestones and carting."!"*

While there are other references to payments to "Mr. Lamson" in Suf-
folk, Essex, and Middlesex County Probate Records of a date consistent
with Joseph's time, some refer to the work of his sons and can be sepa-
rated out only by the lettering or style. The stones mentioned above,
however, enable us to identify the style and lettering of Joseph. There is
a continuity of style between the father and his sons so that when the
son's stones are identified, the father's stones can be identified as well.
Additional evidence will be noted later in this essay as we study stones
made for Lamson family members by carvers within the family. There
are no known stones signed or initialed by Joseph, although there are
initialed stones by his sons Nathaniel and Caleb.

158

Lamson Family Carvers

Fig. 2 Thomas Pratt, 1709, Charlestown

Ralph L. Tucker 159

OTHER CONTEMPORARY CARVERS

Other early carvers may well have learned their craft from the Old
Stonecutter. Forbes states that Thomas Welch was paid for carting stones
of the Old Stonecutter to the grave and that he was an apprentice to him
in 1672. Thomas Welch and Joseph Whittemore both were early carvers,
and are noted in the probate records as stonecutters, but little is known
of their work.^s Both lived in Maiden near Lamson and were his neigh-
bors. What little evidence there is suggests that these three were associ-
ated and worked from the same shop. All three carvers were related by
marriage to some degree, and, as noted earlier, Lamson later married
Welch's widow.

William Mumford, the best of Joseph Lamson's contemporaries and
the one most apt to be confused with him, used a deeply carved side bor-
der of fruit like Lamson's but rarely featured eyebrows on his skulls. The
oval-eyed skulls of Mumford can usually be clearly differentiated from
the eyebrowed skulls of Lamson. The stones of the other contemporary
Boston carvers - Nathaniel Emmes, James Foster, WC, W.G., James
Gilchrist, and J.N. - are all unlike Lamson's in some elements of style
and can usually be identified.

DISTRIBUTION OF STONES

The stones of the Boston carvers are much more frequent south of the
Charles River, while Lamson's are mostly north of it, leading to the con-
clusion that there was a de facto geographical division of territory, proba-
bly caused in part by proximity and modes of transportation. However,
both Boston and Lamson stones can be found north to the Maine coast
and Nova Scotia and south to Charleston, South Carolina and the Barba-
dos, almost certainly because of the relative ease of shipment to these
sites by boat. The lack of quarries on Long Island and Cape Cod, togeth-
er with the presence of established shipping trade routes, explains the
large number of Lamson and Boston stones there. In addition, there are
instances in which a family, after moving to a new area, would order a
stone from the home-town "family carver" and have it shipped to the
new location. Finally, in areas where there was no local carver; or on the
coast where delivery by boat was relatively simple, gravestones were
often imported from a distance. These factors aside, it is usually true that
in the earliest days settlers in interior towns away from water trans-
portation tended to buy their gravestones from a local carver: the diffi-

160

Lamson Family Carvers

bEPvE U^ES^r BOW.
DF AIM CAPxTeFv
WIFE TO-taoMAS
CAPxTKtv AfiXD
^a Y\^ AFvS DIED .
THE 6; OPMA^/

Fig. 3 Ann Carter, 1679, Charlestown

culty of transporting heavy gravestones in areas removed from water
transportation is thus one reason there were so many early stonecutters
in the inland rural areas.

TYPES OF JOSEPH LAMSON STONES
Downleaf Stones

The first style which can be definitely determined as that of Joseph
Lamson I designate as "downleaf" stones (see Fig.3). The distinctive fea-
ture is that of side borders consisting of twin descending leaves roughly
resembling bells or inverted tulip blossoms. This style was used from

Ralph L. Tucker 161

about 1670 to 1714 and contains a winged, eyebrowed skull in the tym-
panum. While few have a frieze, as do his later stones, a number feature
crossbones, Latin phrases, or an hourglass between the tympanum and
the inscription. Few of these stones have the inscription framed as do his
later stones. The finials are usually spirals, although Lamson on occasion
placed a carved face there. More will be said about the style develop-
ment of these faces shortly in connection with the imp stones.

In none of his downleaf stones did Lamson use the fancy numeral
one with coils at its base, as did the Old Stonecutter, and all the lettering
is in upper-case. We know that both Welch and Lamson carved downleaf
stones. The probated 1705 Samuel Retcher stone by Lamson in Chelms-
ford is an example of the style, as is the probated 1697 Mary Rogers
stone by Welch in Billerica. These two stones are nearly identical and
lend credence to the theory that Lamson and Welch worked together.
The downleaf stones are rather small and plain and represent a routine
product. Over one hundred downleaf stones have been studied, and
more could probably be located. Many are dated after Welch's death in
1703, establishing the fact that Lamson was the chief carver of this style.
There are twenty-four downleaf stones with distinctive Lamson drapery
in the tympanum, and ten stones with the Lamson style face in the finial,
which also point to Joseph's authorship.

Two early stones (Joseph's wife Elizabeth Lamson, 1703, Maiden; and
daughter Elizabeth Lamson, 1707 Maiden) of this simple downleaf vari-
ety have winged skulls, disk finials, no inscription frames, and, surpris-
ingly, no eyebrows, a feature characteristic of Joseph's other work. The
characteristics of downleaf stones are listed in Appendix 1 .

Imp Stones

More elaborate designs were developed as Lamson's skill improved.
A second style - the imp stones - dates from 1671-1712, although they
were actually carved in the years 1683-1712, for there are two significant
time gaps when no such stones were made. The first gap is between the
first two stones, which are dated 1671 and 1683. As these two stones are
nearly identical, it is probable that the 1671 stone is backdated and was
cut in the early 1680s. The second gap is from 1694 to 1701. 1 theorize that
the two stones dated 1691 and 1692, which have large imps in their
finials, were felt to be too graphic at the time of the witchcraft craze in
1692, and that Lamson ceased using imps until 1701, well after the witch

162

Lamson Family Carvers

trials, when he resumed their use. The two 1694 stones may be backdat-
ed markers that were actually carved in. the early 1700s.

These stones are some of Lamson's best work. Of the forty-one
known imp stones, about twenty-five are undoubtedly his, and most of
the others are presumably his with help in the inscription area from his
sons. The 1706 Marcy Bucknam stone in Maiden is a poorly carved ver-
sion of the imp stones which I would attribute to either Nathaniel or
Caleb, who were just starting out on their own and had not yet acheived
a high degree of skill. Other possible exceptions are the stone for Elder
John Stone, 1683, Cambridge, which has the Latin " Memento Te Esse
Mortalem " cut above the inscription, a feature typical of the Old Stone-
cutter, as well as three other nearly identical early stones. These are
probably joint productions of the Old Stonecutter and Lamson when he
was an apprentice. They have coil leaf sides and are not as well cut as the

Fig. 4 Jonathan Pierpont, 1709, Wakefield

Ralph L. Tucker

163

later imp stones which are easily identified as Joseph's work. No other
carvers attempted such work.

Among the imp stones are five with Nathaniel's initials " NL " cut
into them, usually in the tympanum. Some attribute these stones to
Nathaniel,i6 but I am of the opinion that while he probably cut the letter-
ing on these stones, he didn't have enough skill to have carved the entire
stone. In this connection, one should note that after 1712, when the sons
took over the business, there are no more such figures, faces, or imps to
be found. When Joseph ceased working, the quality of the carving on the
Lamson stones dropped for several years until the sons' skills gradually
improved.

The imps are nude figures engaged in death or burial activity. There
are twenty-six stones with imps carrying palls (see Fig. 4). This is the ear-
liest type of imp and is the only one to be used beyond 1706. There are
also six stones with imps carrying or lowering coffins (see Fig. 5): these
are restricted to the 1689-1705 time period. Other imp stones show the
figures supporting hourglasses or carrying darts of death. Contrary to

■l-ERE U 'E5,>K"PvODy OF

At^^fiB ""U ^.JEAPvS dec;
TE;-Or AlKiUST 1 6'^ 2

rsrji-:

^^^ M-*^iPi^^ v'f^

\\ >

Fig. 5 William Dickson, 1692, Cambridge

164

Lamson Family Carvers

X ^'

l^-"'

BODY OF

■ZE,CHARL\H
IlLOMG AGED 5
r .\RS DECEASED
aRCH TE 2^^
1 6 « B i

Fig. 6 Zechariah Long, 1688, Charlestown

initial impressions, the imps, although small on the stones, are life-size
when measured against the coffins and palls. Two "headpunchers" are
an exception, as they are "tiny" on top of the skulls where they are found
(see Fig. 6). None of the imps carry bows, although they do have arrows,
or more properly, darts of death. They are not chubby, and do not resem-
ble the putti or cherubs of classical art. Forbes calls them "little

Ralph L. Tucker 165

men" who "help the soul on its way to paradise. "^^ She also refers to the
"darts of death." Allan Ludwig employs a variety of terms - "evil
demons armed with arrows of death," "imps of the underworld/' "imps
of death/' "darts of death/' and "demons of New England symbol-
ism."i^ Dickran and Ann Tashjian use "messengers of death /' and "man
in his nakedness/'i^ while Emily Wasserman prefers the descriptive
"tiny evil demons armed with death's darts. "^o As for these darts or
arrows that some of the imps carry, the sermons of the day often refer to
"darts of death" which were a constant threat and reminder to the liv-
ing.2i There are references to such imps in the testimony of the witchcraft
case of Elizabeth Morse in Newbury in 1681, where one witness states
that she "saw the imp o' God into said Morss howse."^^

The imps are usually found in a frieze below the tympanum and
above the inscription, although two stones have them in the tympanum
itself and another two have them in the finials. Two-thirds of the imps
are wingless and are usually those that are carrying a pall, while other
imps are winged. I can discover no clue as to why some are winged and
some are not. The two "headpuncher" stones with imps in the tympa-
num are early imp stones - the 1686 Elias Row and 1688 Zechariah Long
(Fig. 6) stones - both of which are in Charlestown. These two stones are
nearly identical, and each has two winged imps standing upon the skull
poking it with darts of death. The tympanum is draped with the Lamson
drapery, and the finials contain the spiral or coil found on most of the
downleaf stones. The inscriptions are framed, and the sides have typical
Lamson lush fruit borders. Apparently these stones were a bit grim even
for those days, and Lamson never again used the same configuration of
headpunching imps.

Lamson later tried placing large, wingless imps in the finials. This
may be seen on two stones, those for Deacon John Stone of Watertown,
1691, and William Dickson of Cambridge, 1692 (Fig. 5). On the Water-
town stone, one of the finial imps holds an imp hourglass and dart of
death, the other a scythe and dart of death. Each stands in a finial facing
the other. On the Cambridge stone, each imp holds an hourglass and a
dart of death, while in the frieze there are two pairs of small winged
imps carrying coffins. The odd hairdos on these large finial imps have
sometimes been seen as Indian hairdos, and the darts of death in their
hands as arrows, leading to speculation that the figures are Indians
rather than death imps. In this connection, I find it significant that these

166 Lamson Family Carvers

two stones were carved just before the time of the Salem witchcraft affair
and that Lamson never again used large imps in the finial. Only after a
hiatus of eight years did he resume carving imps, and then with an out-
burst of twenty-seven more stones featuring this motif.

The later imp stones all contain the imps within the frieze where,
because of their smaller size, they appear less threatening. Their activity
is nonetheless pronouncedly grim as they carry coffins or palls or sup-
port a centrally placed hourglass. These stones are all well carved, with
most having richly carved side borders containing vines, pomegranates,
gourds, pumpkins, and other fruit. Vines and gourds in the tympanum
are also to be found. Most of the stones have distinctive Lamson-style
drapery above the skull and use his typical skull shape. They also fea-
ture framed inscriptions, bottom borders and finely carved faces in the
finials. These details make it possible to be certain of the carver.

Six of the forty-one stones present epitaphs below the inscription,
while another six employ the Biblical quotation " the memory of the just
IS blessed." This quotation is also found on his stones of other styles and
is a clue to the carver's identity.

Three imp stones, all dated 1709, are of special significance - those of
the Rev. Jonathan Pierpont, Wakefield ; Mary and Hannah Shutt, Copp's
Hill, Boston; and Pyam and Elizabeth Blower, Cambridge. On these
stones the faces which Lamson placed in the finials were given upper
torsos. These are more fully described under the heading of "Finials"
below. A listing of impstone characteristics may be found in appendix 2.

Regular Style Stones

The stones of Joseph Lamson most commonly found are similar to
the downleaf variety except that the carving is much more fully devel-
oped and elaborate. They have Lamson's typical death's-head, and a
leaf-like drapery unlike that of any other carver often adorns the top
border of the tympanum. The space between the tympanum and the
inscription is bordered and becomes a formal frieze. The Latin phrases
memento MORI and hora fugit and a centrally placed hourglass are usu-
ally found in the frieze, together with various items associated with
death. The downleaf sides are replaced with well-carved fruit borders of
pumpkins, pomegranates, and other fruits. Inscriptions are framed, and
the overall stone is deeply carved and rich in appearance (see Fig. 7).

Ralph L. Tucker

167

Fig. 7 Robert Knowles, 1703, Charlestown

Other Stones

There are several early stones dating from 1684 to 1689 that, while
they have some Lamson traits, also display elements which indicate a
hand other than his. These are stones obviously made by a carver lack-
ing the skill displayed by Joseph at the dates involved. On fifteen stones
of this type that I have studied, the skulls resemble upside-down pears,
having narrower chins than usual and brows that drop down to form the

168 Lamson Family Carvers

nose, which contains a triangle. The lettering is upper-case and the carv-
ing simple. Four of these stones have "downleaf" sides similar to
Joseph's earlier work, three feature Lamson-type drapery above the
skull, and one has a face finial typical of his shop. The stones are too
early to be the work of his sons, and certainly too crude to be that of
Joseph himself. My feeling is that, as both Thomas Welch and Joseph
Whittemore are known to be stonecutters as well as close associates and
neighbors, these stones should probably be attributed to one of them.

DESCRIPTION OF JOSEPH LAMSON'S WORK

Tympanum

A winged skull with eyebrows is found on the tympanum of nearly
all of Joseph Lamson's stones. The eyes are round, sometimes just a bit
oval, but not overly large. Eyebrows sometimes have hooks at their
extremities on his earliest stones. A few of his skulls lack eyebrows, but
they are the exception. The line of the eyebrows at the center usually
continues downward to form a triangular nose.

The earliest stones have no carving between the skull's nose and
teeth (see Fig. 3), but in time an arc is used in this location, giving the
impression of an upper lip (see Fig. 4). (Later, about 1712, when the sons
are carving, the arc evolves to become bracket-shaped and appears even
more lip-like: see Fig. 8). Teeth are in two rows and evenly spaced. The
chin, while squarish, usually has rounded corners. The wings spread to
each side evenly, with each feather having a central stem. The wing
feathers are not coined in layers as sometimes found in the work of the
Old Stonecutter. In early Lamson stones the death's-head fills the
tympanum, but soon other elements are added, the most distinctive
being a form of leaf-like drapery bordering the top of the tympanum
above the skull (see Fig. 3). The same type of drapery is also used at
times to form a frame for the inscription (see Fig. 4). On a few occasions
it is even used in the finial. This drapery becomes a distinctive Lamson
hallmark and is used for several generations by the Lamson shop.

Vines and leaves sometimes replace the drapery in the tympanum
above the death's-head (see Fig. 4). This appears to be a transition from
death items to symbols of life. Another motif in the tympanum consists of
a single oak or acanthus leaf suspended from the top center, with a daisy-
like flower hanging down on either side above the skull (see Fig. 9).

Ralph L. Tucker

169

Fig. 8 Joseph Lamson, 1722, Charlestown

Even at the earhest dates, the winged skull, or death's-head, is at
times replaced by a winged face (or cherub), but this is rare. The face that
Joseph commonly used in the finial is later moved to the tympanum and
wings are added. While the cherub was used infrequently by Joseph,
later Lamsons made greater use of this motif, until finally, in several
variations, it becomes relatively common in their work. In the study of
early New England gravestones, a most significant fact to emerge is the
shift from a grim presentation of death symbols such as skulls to a more
general use of lifelike cherubs.

The Old Stonecutter, William Mumford, and other early carvers also
occasionally use a winged face on their stones. It was only after 1740,
however, that the cherub became common. A variety of types of cherubs
were developed, and several Lamson styles have been identified (see
Fig. 10 A-H). This addition of winged faces or cherubs is indicative of the
developing theological opinions arising during the Great Awakening of
the 1740s. Philippe Aries, in discussing this shift, notes:

170

Lamson Family Carvers

th/v/'Bo.iy.of A^-f

P'deparr.riruliis'Litc:

t^^th^w^

Fig. 9 Nathaniel Lamson, 1755, Charlestown

In America it [the death's-head] has a flavor and intensity all its own: peo-
ple had not forgotten that it represented the immortal soul. This explains
vvfhy in eighteenth-century New England, where the meaning of death
was changing and the Puritans were belatedly ceasing to cultivate the
fear of death, the winged death's-head was transformed into a winged
angel's head by an almost cinematic process in which the face gradually
became fuller and gentler.^^

There are also a few atypical stones, such as those with coats of arms,
which can be identified as Joseph Lamson's work. These tend to be

Ralph L. Tucker 171

stones for prominent persons and were made to order rather than being
"stock" stones. The exceptional 1714/5 Mary Rous stone (Fig. 1) in
Charlestown is an example of such work.

Frieze

The area between the tympanum and the inscription on the stones of
most carvers is devoid of carving, with the exception of an occasional
line of division. This is true of Lamson's typical earliest work, but by the
1670s he places crossbones and hourglasses in the area without any bor-
der, especially on downleaf stones. Later, a centrally placed hourglass
(see Fig. 3) becomes standard in this area, and is one of the last death
symbols to eventually disappear. Soon the Latin phrases "memento
MORI" and "fugit hora" are included in the frieze regularly, together
with borders that provide a separation between the tympanum and
inscription (see Fig. 7). The imp stones use this space for the imps,
coffins, and palls (see Fig. 4), while on other types of stones shovels,
picks, hourglasses and other death related items are used. After about
1712, when Joseph ceased carving, vines, leaves, figs, and often a central
disk or flower are replacements for the more grim implements in the
frieze. On the less elaborate stones there may be no frieze at all, regard-
less of the time period.

Inscription, Lettering, Frame

The lettering of the stones that Joseph Lamson himself carved and
lettered is consistently good upper-case and has no idiosyncratic letters
that enable one easily to identify his work. The Old Stonecutter, for
example, used an odd numeral one with two scrolls at its base as well as
an old-fashioned letter " T ". Other carvers often had some equally iden-
tifying telltale letters. Starting about 1709, however, some of Lamson's
stones are cut with lower-case lettering, probably indicating that his
sons, as they gained skill in carving, were given the task of lettering the
stones. By 1717, when the sons had taken over the business, nearly all
Lamson stones have upper- and lower-case letters; this at a time when
few other carvers used lower case in the main inscriptions. It appears
that Boston carvers did not usually use lower-case lettering until about
1760.24 This makes the task of identifying these Lamson stones some-
what easier.

In a few cases on stones for the clergy Latin is used, usually at some

172 Lamson Family Carvers

length, the text having been suppHed by neighboring clergy. While most
early carvers used the thorn "ye," Joseph was one of the first to use "the"
in its place consistently, another fact that allows us to differentiate the
stones of some of the early carvers.

Generally gravestones were made ahead, and the purchaser would
select one and then have the essential inscriptional data and sometimes
an epitaph added. This task was generally given to an apprentice - in the
case of the Lamson shop, to the sons. Such a case is found in the remark-
able 1709 Rev. Jonathan Pierpont stone in Wakefield (Fig. 4). This is one
of the finest stones of the period and was undoubtedly carved by Joseph
Lamson. If one examines it closely, the initials "NL" will be seen hidden
in the tympanum. As Nathaniel was still a teen-aged youth in 1709, it is
probable that he was given the task of doing the lettering, which he exe-
cuted in lower-case. This also gave him the opportunity and excuse to
add his initials to the stone.

Because of this practice in the early shops of leaving the lettering to
an apprentice (with the result that an otherwise well-carved stone may
have some rather crude lettering), it is dangerous to lean too heavily
upon the style of lettering to identify a carver in instances where there
may have been apprentices. There are also known cases in which a mer-
chant purchased from a carver some ornamented but unlettered stones
which were later sold and lettered by a second carver.

Generally Joseph did not provide an epitaph, though when present it
is usually found below the inscription: in a significant number of cases,
however, the quotation from Proverbs 10:7, "The Memory of the Just is
Blessed," is used and can be a clue to identifying some of his work.

Lamson was the first to use a frame around the inscription, some-
thing other carvers seldom did. Not only did he introduce this feature,
he was imaginative in his variety. Some of his more elaborate frames use
the drapery found in his tympanum. Others present degrees of elabora-
tion varying in accordance with the richness of the carving of the border.
The borders beneath the inscriptions have often sunk below ground and
thus cannot be seen, but where they are visible they add a balancing
touch to the overall design. Lamson also appears to have been the first to
use bottom borders, a feature provided by few other carvers.

Finials

In the finials of some of the later downleaf stones, and in many of his

Ralph L. Tucker 173

other stones, Joseph Lamson carved a face. The development of this fea-
ture is most interesting. The earUest faces (1680-1705) are rather crudely
cut, with stringy hair and odd eyes that are shaped like fish (see Fig. 11-
A). Some refer to these as "soul effigies," as they are not very lifelike and
may have been placed on the stone to ameliorate the stark skulls in the
tympanum and indicate evidence of the soul's presence even in the face
of death. To me, however, they appear simply as poorly carved faces
which 1 call "fish-eye faces." Surprisingly, four of these faces have mous-
taches (see Fig. 11-B), a rather unspiritual aspect, leading me to the con-
clusion that indeed these faces nre intended to represent human faces. By
1700, the workmanship improves and the faces approach a more realistic
appearance. In the period 1704 -1713, the face has either a masculine
appearance with carefully groomed shoulder-length hair and well
shaped eyes (see Fig. 11-C), or is feminine, with the hair pulled back (see
Fig. 11-D). The faces of these two types are on many of the stones of this
period. There is little effort to individualize them, although as early as
1704 the finial face on the Rev. Thomas Clark stone in Chelmsford was
given clerical tabs placed under the chin to indicate his occupation.

In a further development in 1709, the Pierpont stone has in each finial
a torso added to the head, showing the figure of the clergyman gowned,
with preaching tabs, and holding a bible (Fig. 4). That same year, a simi-
lar stone was made for Captain and Mrs. Blower of Cambridge, with
busts of a male figure on one finial and a female figure on the other, each
dressed appropriately, their hands folded in prayer. Also from the same
year, Mary and Hannah Shutt's double stone in Boston's Copp's Hill Bur-
ial Ground has a female bust or half figure in each finial. Copp's Hill also
contains the 1709 John Russell stone, which, although badly broken, pre-
sents a waist-up figure with hands in prayer. ^s These personalized fig-
ures show that by this time, if not earlier, the representations are human
and not soul effigies. The last of these faces appear in 1713, and these
stones mark the end of Joseph's carving. His sons' carving abilities by
this time, while improving, were not good enough to produce any faces.

While faces are often found in Joseph's finials, he also generally
employed a variety of other devices in this space, usually geometric or
floral. As mentioned earlier, most of the downleaf stones have a spiral or
face in the finial. Flower blossoms, curved leaf shapes, differing types of
disks, and round geometric shapes are found in abundance on his stan-
dard work.

174

Lamson Family Carvers

1734 Tabitha Morse
Cambridge

1771 David Jones
Newburyport

1773 Hannah Sheafe
Portsmouth, NH

®X®

^-^^^S^.

1756 Ephraun Jones
Concord

1772 William Johnson
West Newbury

1780 Timothy Famum
North Andover

Fig. lOA-H Cherubs found on Lamson stones

Ralph L. Tucker

175

UMJSS^>^^^

1791 Sarah Gardner
Salem

1794 Katherine Moore
Charlestown

1702 Mabel Jenner
Charlestown

1702/3 Peter & Mary Tufts
Maiden

1709/10 William Wyer
Charlestown

1711 Mehetabel Cutler
Charlestown

Fig. IIA-D Finial faces found on Lamson stones

176 Lamson Family Carvers

Side Borders

As a frame heightens the appearance of a painting, so a rich border
enhances the design of a gravestone. Joseph Lamson's earliest stones,
devoid of inscription frames, finial decorations, and side borders, are
rather plain. The downleaf stones, having side borders, are more attrac-
tive, and his imp stones with their deeply carved fruit side borders stand
out, as the depth of the carving adds a richness, casting shadows as the
light of the day moves from one side to the other. Generally, the side bor-
ders will vary in detail and depth in accordance with the other aspects of
the carving, the more elaborate stones having richer borders. As time
went on, however, the deeply carved fruit borders, which require a great
deal of work, were replaced by later generations with simpler leaf
designs. This may be seen with the second generation of the Lamson
family, and even more markedly in later generations, to the point where
borders are no longer used at all. It may be that the early stonecutters
took more pride in their work, or merely that later generations had to
produce so many more stones that carving borders became impractical.

Joseph's "downleaf " sides are easily recognized. Aside from Thomas
Welch and perhaps Joseph Whittemore, who probably worked with him,
no other carvers used these sides in such quantity. Lamson-type lush
fruit sides, however, are also found on the well-carved stones of William
Mumford especially, and to a degree on the stones of the other Boston
carvers as well. A border of gourds and leaves less ornate than Joseph's
fruit border is found in the period 1708-1721 (see Fig. 12). This border of
the Lamson shop can usually be identified easily, as the gourds often
resemble Christmas stockings. A circular leaf border (see Fig. 8) is com-
mon on the stones made by the Lamson family, as well as by most other
early carvers, and can be found on nearly all of the Boston carvers'
stones, even the earliest ones. A fig motif appears early and is used in
borders by the Lamson sons, but probably not often by Joseph. The fig
continues to be used by the family for another sixty years.

Strawberry Vine

An interesting design of the 1697-1717 period is a crudely carved
strawberry vine, which has been found on twenty-six Lamson stones
(see Fig. 13). While one would not expect to attribute this crude work to
a master carver, these carvings are not found after Joseph's death in the
mature work of his sons. The answer seems to be that this is probably the

Ralph L. Tucker

177

Here Lv^* ^ Bo 6

Sarticel aj\J IV'K*
Mavj^ReeJ Died

Fig. 12 Mary Reed, 1712/3, Marblehead

early work of Nathaniel or Caleb, and that as they became more profi-
cient they discarded the berry motif. There are, however, a few with such
early dates that the stones are either backdated (which is probable) or
carved by Welch or Whittemore. This carving is usually found on the
bottom border (seventeen times), where more casual patterns are gener-
ally found, as well as in the frieze (eight times), in the tympanum (three
times), and in the side borders (once).

Footstones

Gravestones were made in pairs, with the headstone usually bearing

178

Lamson Family Carvers

>:i f

.«« «- ^-.■^t,.

Fig. 13 Mary Barrett, 1713, Concord

the decorative pattern and inscription and the smaller footstone bearing
simply the name or initials, date, and sometimes simple carving. From
the early 1 700s, we often find a pair of fig-like devices on a background
of vertical lines in the tympanum of the footstones of the Lamson shop
(see Fig. 2). This unique device on their footstones continues in use well
into the 1780s, and is a hallmark of the family. While the footstone is usu-
ally the same type (i.e., material) of stone as the headstone, this is not
always the case. Instances have been found, for example, where a brown
sandstone footstone is used with a slate headstone.

Ralph L. Tucker 179

SECOND GENERATION

Two of Joseph Lamson's five sons are known to have become carvers,
Nathaniel (1692-1755) and Caleb (1697-1760). A third son, William, born
October 25, 1694, may as a young man have worked in his father's shop,
but we have no evidence for this. In 1717, William removed to Stratford,
Connecticut, where he married and spent the rest of his life active in the
community there. While there is no evidence that he was a carver, it is
probable that his son, William, Jr., at a later date may well have been.
This will be discussed later in relation to the Lamson stones in Connecti-
cut and New York.

Nathaniel Lamson

Nathaniel was born at Maiden, Massachusetts in 1692 and married
Dorothy Mousal, his step-mother's daughter, January 13, 1722/3, at
Medford, Massachusetts. He lived in Charlestown, where all his chil-
dren were born. He died June 7, 1755, and his stone is in the Phipps
Street Burial Ground, Charlestown (Fig. 9). There are forty-eight stones
probated to him from 1713 to 1755, and probate records that document
Nathaniel as having been paid for stones in the 1713-1715 period indi-
cate that Joseph had turned over most of the work to his son by this time.
Fortunately, there are several stones which Nathaniel initialed (see Table
1): these usually are stones which he made at an early age.

While Joseph had always used upper-case lettering on his work,
about 1709 lower-case lettering begins to be found on Lamson stones.
Though the ornamental carving on these initialed stones is too refined to
be the work of the teenage Nathaniel, it appears that this lower-case let-

TABLE 1
Initialed "NL" Stones
*=imp stone
1707 *Samuel Blanchard Andover, MA

1709 *Pyam & Elizabeth Blower Cambridge, MA
1709 *Rev. Jonathan Pierpont Wakefield, MA (Fig. 4)

1709 =^Hannah & Mary Shutt Boston, Copp's Hill, MA

1710 ''Mercy Oliver Cambridge, MA

1714/5 Mary Rous Charlestown, MA (Fig. 1)

1716 Ephraim Beach Stratford, CT

1716 Thomas Sewell Cambridge, MA

180 Lamson Family Carvers

tering represents the work of the son. The five imp stones mentioned
above are of this category, as is the superb stone for Mary Rous (Fig. 1).
By 1717, when the sons had taken over the business, all the stones have
lower-case lettering and none are inscribed with all upper-case letters.

"Continuous Brow" Stones

There are sixteen stones dating from 1703 to 1707 which are similar to
the usual Lamson stones except that the eyebrows in these stones form a
continuous line above the nose which does not descend to connect with
it. The stones are all lettered in upper-case. Seven have downleaf sides,
three have framed inscriptions, and two have drapery above the skull -
all Lamson traits. On the other hand, the skulls on these stones usually
have narrow jaws, four exhibit crude lettering, four have an oversized
numeral three and /or five, and five use a numeral one having two coils
at the base - all non-Lamson traits. As Welch was dead by this time, I
attribute the stones to either Whittemore or young Nathaniel.

"Big 5" stones

These stones all have distinctive large numerals five and /or three
with large loops. Of the eleven stones studied (four are of the " Continu-
ous Brow " variety), five have Lamson drapery, four have Lamson finial
faces, three have "downleaf" sides, and one has a framed inscription. On
the other hand, six have the unusual numeral one with coils at the base,
nine use carets between some words, five have slightly indented skulls,
and three have abstract side borders unlike the work of Joseph Lamson.
As the eleven stones date from 1703 to 1707, it would appear that
Nathaniel Lamson or Joseph Whittemore was the carver - perhaps both.

"Abstract Side" Stones

Forty stones dating from 1708 to 1713, as well as the nine "browless"
stones (see next heading), have side borders with fruit or leaf elements
which are more abstract than lifelike. Other than this they are much like
the usual Lamson stones. Fourteen have drapery, eleven have frames,
ten have a frieze, nine have finial faces, and four have winged faces or
"cherubs" instead of winged skulls - all Lamson traits. Half of the stones
are all upper-case, and the rest are lower-case, which sometimes
includes an old style letter "T" that resembles a curved upper-case letter
"E," as well as an unusual lower-case letter "F" with a dot or small trian-

Ralph L. Tucker 181

gle on it's left side three-quarters of the way up. It was in this time peri-
od that Joseph was slowing down in his production of stones and that
the two sons were beginning to be paid for their stones, indicating that
they were taking over the business. At such a time, some experimenta-
tion was to be expected. The shift from upper- to lower-case lettering by
the Lamson brothers is significant, as the other contemporary carvers
did not make this shift for an additional forty years. It is my opinion that
Nathaniel Lamson is primarily responsible for these stones.

"Browless" Stones

While the basic hallmark of a Lamson stone is the presence of eye-
brows, there are nine dating from 1705 to 1710 that are browless and yet
have all the traits of a Lamson work, albeit some marks of a beginng
carver. The use of a finial face and a framed inscription are found in this
category. An interesting fact in regard to the lack of eyebrows is that
Joseph Lamson's first wife's stone and a daughter's stone are in this style.
I could locate less than twenty browless Lamson stones before 1715, and
I would attribute the early stones of this type to Nathaniel Lamson.

Caleb Lamson

Caleb was born in Maiden, Massachusetts, June 12, 1697, and mar-
ried Dorothy Hancock, daughter of Samuel, November 24, 1720, at Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts. He lived in Maiden and belonged to the church
there. He was listed on the muster roll as sergeant in Captain John Cod-
man's Company of Charlestown. He died February 9, 1760, at the age of
63, according to his gravestone in Charlestown. Caleb's inventory's
clearly shows his occupation to be stonecutter, as not only carver's tools,
but also gravestones are listed.

Caleb's ten initialed stones (see Table 2) range in date from 1713 to
1725. It is to be noted that these initialed stones were made when he was
quite young and eager to be identified as a carver. The 1712/3 Mary
Reed stone (Fig. 12) at Marblehead, with Caleb's initials carved below
the skull's chin, is a stone with lower-case lettering and misspelled
words. Eight other initialed stones are all rather plainly carved and of a
simple design. He apparently did not add his initials to his father's
stones as did his brother, probably because his father had ceased carving
about the time Caleb was able to produce good work. Most likely his
stones were typical of his work at that time, adding to the evidence that

182

Lamson Family Carvers

1712/3

Mary Reed

1716/7

Joseph Grimes

"M by Caleb Lamson"

1717

Prudence Turner

1717

John Mitchell

1719

John Rogers

1720

Joseph Small

1720

Benjamin Alcock

1721

Richard & Lydia Webber

1725

Margaret Gardner

1766 [!]

William Grimes [palimsest]

TABLE 2
Initialed "C L" Stones

Marblehead, MA (Fig. 12)
Stratford, CT

Marblehead, MA
Maiden, MA
Portsmouth, NH
Portsmouth, NH
Portsmouth, NH
Portsmouth, NH
Portsmouth, NH
Lexington, MA (Fig. 15)

Joseph had turned over the business about 1712. We have probate refer-
ences to fifty-two stones probated to Caleb from 1 723 to 1 767.

The 1766 William Grimes stone (Fig. 15) initialed by Caleb Lamson is
a remarkable example of a "palimpsest" stone, a type of marker which
has certain characteristics in common with but is in fact very different
from a backdated stone. "Backdating" was especially practiced in the
early days: for example, one finds a number of Lamson stones dated
much earlier than 1712 that have figs carved in the side borders even
though we know that the second generation Lamsons had only begun to
use this fig motif about 1712, thereby showing that the stones were
carved much later than the date on the face of the stone. Palimpsest
stones, on the other hand, are stones that have had their inscription area
carved out and then re-lettered at a subsequent date, thus producing an
old style stone bearing at a later date. The Grimes stone, an obvious
example of the Lamson style with the initials of Caleb Lamson, is dated
six years after his death. The carving on the footstone in the style of the
Park family gives us the evidence of the re-use of this stone by a second
carver. If one examines the face of the stone carefully, it is possible to find
traces of the original inscription.

Styles of 2nd Generation

About 1712-1713 one can see that there was a shift from the old styles
to newer ones. Joseph apparently ceased carving as his two sons came of

Ralph L. Tucker

183

Fig. 14 Samuel Livermore, 1719, Watertown

age, and as the brothers became more proficient they developed unique
styles different from those of their father. Unfortunately, the work of the
brothers is so homogeneous that one cannot distinguish a stone of
Nathaniel from one of Caleb except for the early 1712-1720 period when
Caleb was beginning to carve and where we find some awkward carving
and abominable spelling on Lamson stones which I attribute to him (see
Figs. 12 and 14). The Lamsons of the second generation rarely used the
downleaf design which their father had employed up to 1711, nor did
they carve any imp stones, although Nathaniel did letter and add his ini-
tials to a few of them. The faces in the finials, which had shown a con-
stant development from as early as 1687, cease to appear. The lush fruit
side borders, too, abruptly cease. It may be that these elements were
beyond the carving ability of the sons at this time. In any case, their
absence indicates that the father is no longer at work. It is at this period

184

Lamson Family Carvers

^^ --^^

I lere lies 11 K-^',
C^'N'v ' Uf_ oi M' ^M]jlalll[
-^'-^- Gurnets ^vjiocliecl^

01 Ills aec^

! S

<:.

mhi

Fig. 15 William Grimes, 1766, Lexington

~ _A

k\yt>..

that "abstract" side borders appear, revealing a change of style perhaps
also linked to a certain lack of skill. The side borders often become slim-
mer and simplified, and vines and leaves become narrower. Drapery is
gradually used less frequently. By 1713, the Latin phrases "memento
MORI" and "fugit hora" are also less frequent. The hourglass, which was
a stable central element in the frieze, is the last death symbol, aside from
the skull, to be used, but by 1717 it too is replaced, usually by a central
disk with leaves or vines. The simple lip mark which had been an arc
becomes a bracket-shaped line, which is more realistic.

There is also a continuity in the Lamson work, however. The stan-
dard three-lobed stone with eyebrowed winged skull and framed
inscription is still used, although it is increasingly less ornate. The drap-

Ralph L. Tucker

185

s;. -V

Fig. 16 Samuel Brigham, 1713, Marlboro

ery which had been used since the 1680s in the tympanum is a frequent
adornment up to the 1730s and continues, though to a lesser degree,
until Caleb's death in 1760. A central disk together with vines, figs, or
leaves, all above the skull or face in the tympanum, gradually replace
the drapery. The winged eyebrowed skull continues dominant, but
winged faces become more common after 1713. In the transitional period
from 1713, when the sons took over, until 1722, when Joseph died, we
find a few instances where both winged skull and winged face are pre-
sent on the same stone, one above the other (see Fig. 16 and Table 3). The
ambivalance in the religious thinking of the day is wonderfully apparent
in such cases.

The crudely carved strawberry vines located in various places on the
stones continue to be found at first, but they completely disappear by 1 71 7.

Several new elements are introduced. The finials are now filled with
a variety of circular disks, flowers, or rosettes, and faces no longer
appear here. A fig which had been occasionally used previously appears
frequently by 1713 - and is omnipresent by 1720 - in the sides (see Fig.

186 Lamson Family Carvers

TABLE 3

Stones with death's

-heads and cherubs

1712/3

Anna Cooper

Woburn, MA

1713

Samuel Brigham

Marlborough, MA

1714

Hannah Angier

Cambridge, MA

1714

James Allen

West Tisbury, MA

1721

Peter & Marcy Tufts

Medford, MA

(Fig. 16)

9), tympanum, frieze, bottom borders, and on the footstones. This also
can be seen as a shift from death symbols to symbols of life, nature, and
abundance. The fig design continues until the 1790s, well after the broth-
ers' deaths, and it becomes a hallmark of the Lamson family and espe-
cially of the second generation stones. It is the fig footstone, as well as
the drapery and eyebrowed skulls, which enables one to identify as
Lamson stones a variety of later styles (see Fig. 2).

About 1715, the family began to use a new quarry which had a slate
diagonally striped in colors of delicate blue, red and green. This slate is
easily identified and is used by the family for many years along with the
usual gray variety. On other occasions, one finds a light brown sand-
stone used by the second and later generations of the family. These
stones are usually small in size. The 1776 Anthony Gwyn markers in
Newburyport (Fig. 17) are a grey slate headstone and a light brown
sandstone footstone with Gwyn's name carved on it. Apparently any
small stone was good enough for a footstone. These two stones are now
replaced with reproductions in the burial ground of St. Paul's Church,
Newburyport, and the original stones are at the Boston Museum of Fine
Arts, a protective practice which should be increasingly followed before
the best stones become victims of rampant vandalism or other factors.
Cherub stones of later generations are often found on this light brown
sandstone. The source of this sandstone is unknown at present, but it
may have come from Connecticut, where Nathaniel and Caleb's brother,
William, lived. William probably acted as agent for the sale of slate Lam-
son stones made in Charlestown, Massachusetts in the Stratford, Con-
necticut area and along the nearby coastal areas, where there are many
such stones. If this is the case, one might expect that he may in turn have
occasionally shipped Connecticut sandstone to Boston for use there.

Lower-case lettering is used regularly after 1717, and is excellently

Ralph L. Tucker

187

wiUrin [\u:.'}

Fig. 17 Anthony Gwyn, 1776, Newburyport, St. Paul's

carved with justified margins and few instances of letters squeezed in.
The Lamson brothers used no letters of unusual style which would
allow us to use lettering as a clue to their work. One can only suggest
that the presence of unusual letter shapes at this time indicates a non-
Lamson carver. The two brothers were the earliest carvers to introduce
and use lower case lettering consistently. The 1709 Pierpont stone (Fig. 4)
in Wakefield is such an early example. While other carvers did use
lower-case occasionally for epitaphs below the inscription, it is only
about 1760 that the Boston carvers used lower case in the inscription
area. This fact can be used to separate and identify some of the carvers of
the period. From 1730 to the 1770s there are some instances of the use of
italics by the Lamsons, especially for the month and for "AD."

There are three stones with "charlestown" carved at the base or on
the footstone which are good examples of the Lamson style (see Table 4).

The development of the side border is steady. As mentioned earlier.

188 Lamson Family Carvers

TABLE 4
Stones with "CHARLESTOWN" carved on them

1710/1 Capt. John Rainford Bridgeton, Barbados

"Made in Charlestown" on face
1721 Dr. John Burchstead Lynn, MA

"Charlestown 1721" on footstone
1721 Hon. John Burrill Lynn, MA

"Charlestown 1722" on footstone

the downleaf and the fruit borders are no longer used after 1713. Begin-
ning about 1707, the Lamsons introduced a leaf and gourd border that is
a simplified variety of the fruit border. The gourds are often sock-shaped
at first, later becoming fuller and more oval. The leaves can be either
rounded or pointed (see Fig. 13). By 1713, a leaf and fig or vine and fig
border becomes dominant and is increasingly well-carved (see Fig. 14).
On simple stones, a narrower leaf or vine border is used (see Fig. 18).
Starting in 1721, and continuing for the next sixty years, borders become
increasingly narrow and less impressive, finally being reduced to simple
lines and then omitted altogether. The fig side borders continue only to
about 1 750, when Nathaniel and Caleb were ending their carving years.

In the tympanum, a suspended acanthus or oak leaf over the head with
a daisy-like flower on either side may be found (see Fig. 9). This device
appears about 1710 and is found frequently in the 1740 -1780 time period.

From 1722 to 1760 there were seven stones carved for members of the
Lamson family which, while showing some variety, are essentially alike.
All located in Charlestown, they include those for Joseph and his two
carver sons, and are in each case clear cut, typical Lamson stones:

1722. Joseph Lamson the carver (Fig. 8) has an eyebrowed winged
skull, draped tympanum, circle leaf sides, disk finials, framed
inscription, and upper- and lower-case lettering. This is a typical
second generation stone, as indicated by the lettering and by the
fact that Joseph's sons were the only members of the family carv-
ing at the time.

1723. Elizabeth Lamson, daughter of Nathaniel, has an eyebrowed
winged skull with leaves over the skull, fig and leaf border, disk
finials, and no frame. The date, together with the figs, mark this as
a second generation stone.

Ralph L. Tucker

189

•l

llorc lyes Brtririr
rlK! Body 0

M': AAP.Ol I

Vho rlejiarrcrf fliji;

(:| .jOrf/7;/.pr / \ 4fy;i >i m(Mi '-■ |

Fig. 18 Aaron Tufts, 1772, Charlestown

1724. Caleb Lamson, son of carver Caleb, has a draped, eyebrowed
winged skull, framed inscription, and a fig and leaf border similar
to the stone of Elizabeth.

1734. Hannah Lamson, daughter of carver Caleb, has an eyebrowed
winged skull with leaves over it, a framed inscription, and leaf
sides. The figs have been omitted.

1755. Nathaniel Lamson the carver (Fig. 9), has an eyebrowed winged
skull with two flowers over the skull, a framed inscription, fig
and leaf sides, and a flower finial.

1757. Caleb Lamson, a second son of carver Caleb, has a draped, eye-
browed winged skull, a framed inscription and fig and leaf sides.

1760. Caleb Lamson the carver has an eyebrowed winged skull with
leaf and figs over, a framed inscription, and fig and leaf sides.

190 Lamson Family Carvers

These seven stones are all typical of the stones of the second and third
generations and add to the evidence documenting the authorship of the
Lamson styles.

There are some excellently carved coats of arms in Charlestown and
in Boston that may well have been produced by the brothers. These were
placed at the entrances to underground tombs, and they illustrate a high
degree of skill. One good example is the Jackson coat of arms in the
Granary Burial Ground, Boston, which is probated to Nathaniel Lamson
for £35, plus an additional £10 for other work. The Samuel Jackson estate
was settled in 1757, two years after Nathaniel's death.27

Beginning in the 1730s, a marked shift in style is found in the death's-
head as the skull loses it's eyebrows and the eyes become large and
round. Such light-bulb shaped skulls (see Fig. 18) are found probated to
nearly all of the carvers of the time and are nearly identical in all
respects. Most Boston carvers used such a style, and it was not at first
recognized that the Lamsons also did such work: however, the fig foot-
stone associated with some of these headstones makes such attributions
secure. This type of stone is generally referred to as a "generic" skull,
whose authorship is uncertain unless there is some identifying clue such
as probate records, peculiar lettering, or an associated footstone. Fortu-
nately, these plain and routine stones are not the end of the line, for the
Lamson family went on to develop some very interesting and significant
stones in following generations.

THIRD GENERATION

Lamson stones dating from the 1740s to the 1780s represent the work
of the end of the second generation, the third generation of carvers, and
the beginning of the fourth.

Joseph Lamson, son of Nathaniel, was born in Charlestown on
November 11, 1728. He married there Susanna Frothingham^s on Janu-
ary 18, 1752/3, and in 1789 is listed in the census with daughter Eliza-
beth. He died April 25, 1789. In the division of his estate is listed a wharf
on the Mystic River. He had the distinction of owning the site of the Bat-
tle of Bunker Hill. We know of twenty-seven stones of his which are
found mentioned in the probate records, being dated from 1743 to 1774.
There are an additional twenty-one stones mentioned that could have
been made either by this Joseph or his son Joseph, these being dated
from 1776 to 1788. As relatively few stones are ever noted in the records.

Ralph L. Tucker 191

this number is sufficient to mark him as a productive carver.

John Lamson, the son of Caleb, was born at Charlestown on June 10,
1732 and married Frances Webb there on May 10, 1759. His gravestone
stands in Woburn, where he died January 2, 1776. In probate records he
is called "stonecutter," ^9 as are his sons Samuel and Caleb. The probate
references to stones by John are few, there being ony nine, while another
seven stones of the appropriate dates are noted to "Mr. Lamson," which
could refer to either John or his cousin Joseph.

It is difficult to determine the difference between the second and
third generation Lamson stones. Assuming that carvers could begin to
carve at the age of fifteen, the third generation's work would start to
appear about 1743 in the case of Joseph, the son of Nathaniel, and 1747 in
the case of John, the son of Caleb. As one examines these stones, there
are few new styles evident, and the lettering provides few clues that
might enable one to differentiate the various members of the family. As
Nathaniel died in 1755 and Caleb in 1760, there is an overlap of about
eighteen years when four Lamsons were carving. This would be a period
when payments may have been made to Nathaniel or Caleb even if the
work was by their sons.

Surveying the evidence, I would surmise that Joseph of the third gen-
eration became a steady carver who passed the craft on to his son,
Joseph. John, on the other hand, may have worked part time as a carver,
probably being more active in his other documented role as a school-
master, despite the fact that he and his two sons Caleb and Samuel are
mentioned in some records as "stonecutters." The styles of the third gen-
eration are largely those of their fathers. There was a general simplifica-
tion in the carving, with narrower side panels, fewer finials, and less
ornamentation.

One new style to emerge, however, was the "Gabriel" variety (see
Fig. 19 and Appendix 3). These stones contain a bird-like winged head
blowing a long horn and are found in the 1753-1791 period, indicating
that at least some of them were carved by the fourth generation. The
inscription "Arise ye dead" often emerges from the horn, and in one case
is written in mirrored lettering. The attribution of these stones is based
on the evidence that one can find the Lamson frond in the tympanum,
and the fact that all have the numeral one that resembles the letter "J."
This typical "1=J" is found in many of the fourth generation stones of the
Lamson family, as well as in the work of other carvers. The lettering is

192

Lamson Family Carvers

n
I

W\(.n^() r \ of

Fig. 19 Jonathan Poole, 1791, Wakefield

otherwise devoid of unique features.

In the 1760s and 1770s there was use of a cursive script and also of
italics in the lettering. There seems to have been much experimentation
in various forms of lettering, but all was in good taste and not like the
work of other carvers who sometimes used a different font for each line
of the inscription. A variety of cherub faces is found, as there were sev-
eral members of the family carving simultaneously (see Figs. lOA-H).

FOURTH GENERATION

Joseph Lamson, son of Joseph of the third generation, was born in
Charles town February 3, 1760 and was married December 13, 1791 to
Susanna Frothingham.^o He was a corporal in the Massachusetts Conti-
nental Army and died in Charlestown September 25, 1808. He is listed as
a "stonecutter" and owned land on the Mystic River on the canal. His
inventory lists an estate worth $514.00. There are eight stones probated
to him, with an additional twenty-one that were made either by him or
his father.

Ralph L. Tucker 193

Caleb Lamson, son of John, was baptized April 27, 1760 and married
Joanna Rand on February 27, 1794. He died sometime after ISOO.^i I
could only locate three probated references of stones for which he was
paid, these being from 1791 to 1794.

Samuel Lamson, the son of John and brother of Caleb, was baptized
March 7, 1773 at Charlestown. He married Sally Elliot on July 23, 1811,
and died in 1818. He is listed as "a victualler and chaise maker" as well
as a "stonecutter." I could not locate any probate records relating to
Samuel.

Probate records credit a David Lamson with payment for the 1799
stone of Mary Farmer located in the Copp's Hill Burial Ground in
Boston, but my search of the genealogical and other records leave the
issue very much in doubt as to who precisely this David Lawson was.

Finally, there are at least eight probate references to "Mr" Lamson
that could be for any of the above members of the family. As the estate
payments were often made a year or two after the funeral, one should be
guarded in attempting an exact chronology or attribution.

There are several new marker styles that begin to be seen as the
fourth generation comes of age. The "figure" stones which appear from
about 1770 to 1800 bring a completely new approach to the family reper-
toire of styles. The fig (see Fig. 2) continues to be a hallmark of the shop
through the 1790s and is usually located in the side borders, especially
on the footstones, where a balanced pair on a vertically lined back-
ground is often used together with the name, initial, and /or year.
Inscription frames continue to be found on many stones, but are increas-
ingly less ornate. Lower-case lettering is used and is excellently carved,
with justified margins and with few instances of letters squeezed in. At
times on the more elaborate stones, characters in italics are employed for
the place, the month, and for "AD." Lettering is sometimes found in a
cursive script (see Fig. 20), especially on the figure stones in the 1775-
1790 period. Often in the 1790s one finds several kinds of lettering on the
same stone. This tendency led some carvers to an almost vulgar attempt
to display as many kinds of lettering as possible on a given stone. The
Lamsons, fortunately, didn't go as far in this direction as did some oth-
ers. The numeral one in this later period is carved to approximate the let-
ter J, which falls below the line. This can be a clue to identifying Lamson
stones, though other carvers also used a similar device.

Three-lobed stones continue to the 1800s, but square-shouldered

194

Lamson Family Carvers

/ "-r

''(bv^J(l/'(il]

(/( e

. /] /jo r y /-. ^>

• ii)l''\() ■ y')i('(/ K /Vo/j'.^ ^y.'J'/ /) ^

( 9^(f^

)or (

('(( /

(/(

Fig. 20 Sarah Hale, 1785, Newbiuyport, Sawyer Hill

Ralph L. Tucker

195

in Mciikhn/ of

////:. ^0LL^ 1 1 Auivi:^.

d ihis Li(V

\\^ 1 1 0

\ o

\orii

!"S

^T^' t'^IP^^^S'- '^''^ '

Fig. 21 Polly Hams, 1787, Charlestown

1% Lamson Family Carvers

finials begin to appear by the 1770s and soon become dominant (see Fig.
21). A variety of reverse curves and odd shaped tympanums are also
used in this period (see Fig. 20). There is on the part of all carvers of this
period an effort to simplify designs, and with the coming of the fourth
generation of Lamsons the movement accelerates. Side borders become
slimmer and simplified, so that by 1780 plain ruled or lined sides are the
norm. Still later, no side borders at all are used.

The cherub stones of the fourth generation of Lamsons have several
different styles of winged faces, one of their most striking developments.
From 1760-1780 a finely cut face with a pompadour hairdo and outlined
wings is found (see Fig. 10-D). At first the hairdo and the wing outlines
are left blank, but later lines are added to define the hair and the wing
feathers. Often found on a light brown sandstone which the later Lam-
sons sometimes used, as well as on a black slate, this cherub is consistent
in style. The long oval face is later shortened and becomes more round
and rather acorn-shaped, but it is easily recognized as made by the same
hand. Sometimes the wings are deliberately twisted a bit and, as the
mouth is usually slightly crooked, 1 call this type "crooked mouth".
While unlike any previous Lamson cherub, the fig footstone found with
several of these stones identifies this type as a Lamson variety which can
be easily recognized.

There is also a winged face referred to as "lowbrow," which is a
round face with straight eyebrows (see Fig. 10-H). This is a type of stone
generally attributed to Daniel Hastings (1749-1803) of Newton, but
beginning in the 1790s we find them with unmistakeable lettering by
Caleb Lamson or his brother Samuel. The connection of these carvers is
not clear. The Lamsons may have borrowed the style from Hastings, or
even have purchased stones from him, which they lettered. The subject
has need of further study. Another winged face has a pointed hairlock
(see Fig. 10-F). While none of these are initialed, a sufficient number
have fig footstones so as to identify them as Lamson stones. With further
study, the particular Lamson family member who carved each type may
be discovered.

A significant development to appear late in the third generation and
on to the fourth is the "figure" stone [see Appendix 31. These are stones
with full-length or waist-up figures usually carved on good slate. One
type has a full-faced woman from waist up with arms folded in front (see
Fig. 22). Of four such stones (1774-1784) known to the author, the earliest

Ralph L. Tucker

197

/7^)

Fig. 22 Mary Folsom, 1784, Portsmouth, NH

198 Lamson Family Carvers

has a footstone with a Lamson cherub. All four stones are remarkably
similar. Three have cursive script, three have Lamson fronds, and one
portrays a child lost in childbirth held in her mother's arms.

Other "figure" stones are busts or portraits, such as the previously
mentioned Anthony Gwyn stone in Newburyport (Fig. 17), which has a
waist-up figure with a three-cornered hat and a staff or sword in hand. On
its brown sandstone footstone, inscribed with the deceased's name, is a
Lamson cherub. The 1780 Benjamin Greenleaf stone in Newburyport
depicts a well-dressed man with a frond on one side and death symbols on
the other. The 1787 Miss Polly Harris stone in Charlestown (Fig. 21) fea-
tures a central bust of Polly with the Lamson skeleton with scythe and dart
of death on one side and a Lamson frond on the other. There are a number
of such stones which heretofore have not been recognized as Lamson
stones. On these figure stones, the Lamsons' use of a unique frond to bal-
ance the design in the tympanum is a significant clue to their work.

The squat skeleton with an inverted pear-shaped head, round eyes,
and a narrow toothed jaw is another "figure" of the Lamsons. With
upward-turned ribs and squat size (e.g.. Fig. 21) as the most easily spot-
ted clues, the skeleton enables us to identify a number of other stones.
The Lamson skeleton is variously found with an hourglass, a scythe, or
other death symbols. There is a renewal of the use of death impedimen-
ta in the third and fourth generations, all being in secondary positions,
however. The browless round-eyed "lightbulb" skull of the "generic"
variety (e.g.. Fig. 18) continues to be found up to the 1780s. As they are
so common and difficult to attribute, they have received little attention.
There are five stones (all featuring square finials rather than rounded
ones) made for members of the Lamson family of the later generations
that are briefly described here to illustrate the development of styles,
showing both the tendency to simplify and the introduction of such new
features as a bust, a simplified cherub, and the later fashion of the tree
and urn:
1789. Joseph Lamson the carver, son of Nathaniel, has a bust on top of a

pedestal in the tympanum with a frond on either side, narrow leaf

sides, and the numeral one resembling the letter J. There are no

figs, cherubs, or death's-heads.
1794. Elizabeth Lamson, daughter of Nathaniel, has a cherub in the

tympanum with leaves on each side, numeral one = J, and line

sides.

Ralph L. Tucker

199

\\\C(\ loiulorthau ^rv/^rE^■c>nJ
I IU',.\r vv^hai; it tV^Nr,? H

Fig. 23 Nanq/^ Lamson, 1800, Oiarlestown

1795. Susanna Lamson, consort of Joseph, has a cherub and Hne sides.

1800. Nancy Lamson, daughter of Caleb, has a large trunked tree, a bro-
ken bud, urn, and the numeral one = J (Fig. 23).

1808. Joseph Lamson the fourth generation carver has a large trunked
tree and urn and the numeral one == J

Tree and Urn Stones

Beginning in the 1790s and continuing well into the 1800s, the tree
and urn became the most popular gravestone design and finally marked
the end of the death's-head motif. Sometimes the tree or the urn is
depicted separately, but customarily they are used together. As most

200 Lamson Family Carvers

carvers of this period used the tree and urn theme, often in identical
ways, it is sometimes difficult to identify the particular carver of this
style. In certain instances, however, through the use of probate records
or the oddity of a given carver we can identify the maker. Such, fortu-
nately, is the case with the Lamson stones. Lamson-style tree stones are
identified by the following process: of 116 stones located in Maiden's Bell
Rock Burial Ground (which is almost exclusively made up of Lamson
stones) that have trees alone or both trees and urns (1800-1839), most of
the trees have markedly thick trunks and a limited number of large
leaves. The trees are shaped more like elms than willows, lacking
descending branches, and are quite unlike the trees of other carvers
found in the Boston area. The urns appear in a variety of shapes, howev-
er, sometimes resembling loving cups, sometimes Georgian pots, and
usually more round than long or oval. A significant number of these
stones also contain Lamson cherubs along with the trees, thereby
enabling us to identify the Lamson-style tree. Two of these stones (also
described earlier) are for members of the Lamson family and were pre-
sumably made by the family shop:

1800. Nancy Lamson stone in Charlestown, which has the large-trunk-
ed, branched tree with a broken bud and a slender urn (Fig. 23).

1808. Joseph Lamson stone in Charlestown, which has a more tradition-
al willow and a wide urn.

Two additional stones are significant in our search:

1801. Norcross stone in Watertown, which has the Lamson cherub and
the quotation, "The Memory of the Just is Blessed," with two
thick-trunked trees. The urn could be mistaken for a lamp with a
flame.

1809. Tripp stone in the Boylston Street Burial Ground, Boston, which
has the Lamson cherub on the headstone as well as two thick-
trunked trees and an urn (Fig. 24).

A full study of the Lamson urn and willow stones has yet to be made.
Anyone interested in seeking out the particular stones of the Lamson
shop would do well to start at the Maiden Bell Rock Burial Ground and
the Phipps Street Burial Ground in Charlestown, from there broadening
the search to Watertown and Cambridge.

LAMSON STONES IN CONNECTICUT AND NEW YORK

Special attention needs to be paid to Lamson stones in Connecticut

Ralph L. Tucker

201

[cnioryof \M

M^i</ri('riu()|:y

iMofnoiy

iVf,-

Fig. 24 Elizabeth & Nathan Tripp, 1809, Boston, Boylston St.

and New York. Typical winged, browed skulls on slate are found in
coastal Connecticut, with occasional stones of this type in inland areas,
especially near Stratford, Connecticut. Over two hundred such stones
have come to my attention, and there are probably many more. Most
date from 1755-1773, with a few as early as 1716. Lamson slate stones
were brought from the Lamson shop in Massachusetts when Joseph's
son William was married in 1716 at Stratford to Elizabeth Burch, for ini-
tialed stones by both Nathaniel and Caleb are found in Stratford, each
dated 1716. This William, and his son William, Jr., were thus responsible
for the profusion of slate stones in an otherwise slateless area. We have
no evidence, however, that William, Sr. was ever a carver. He died Janu-
ary 21, 1755 in Stratford, where he was a leading citizen and owner of
several mills.

202

Lamson Family Carvers

Fig. 25 Elizabeth Merwin, 1749, Milford, CT

Ralph L. Tucker 203

On the eastern end of Long Island there are over ninety slate stones
dated 1715-1759. Most, if not all, of these Long Island stones were also
probably carved in Charlestown at the Lamson shop, as they are on the
usual gray-black or striped slate, none of which is found in Connecticut
or on quarry-less Long Island. The inscription area of the gray slate is
often coated with a brown film of rust, typical of the slate used by the
Lamson shop.

On the other hand, in the western Connecticut area, and on the
northern side of western Long Island, one finds Lamson stones carved
on red or brown Connecticut sandstone. These stones have the unmis-
takable marks of the Lamson shop, but vary from the usual styles in sig-
nificant detail. The winged, eyebrowed skull, figs, leaf and two-flower
motifs typical of the Lamson shop are found: on the other hand, some of
the skulls have extremely narrow jaws, and some side borders have
well-carved flowers of a type not found in Massachusetts (see Fig. 25).
There are distinct differences between the sandstone and the slate styles,
probably owing to the difference in ease of carving in sandstone and in
slate. There is, however, no mistaking the fact that all are of the Lamson
style, dating from 1740 to 1769 with a few (possibly backdated) as early
as 1730. 1 know of sixty-nine Long Island stones and forty-two Connecti-
cut stones of this type, and there are probably many more. These Lam-
son stones are found in and around New Milford, Connecticut, and in
nearby South Salem, New York, just over the Connecticut border, as well
as on the north shore of western Long Island. Milford, Connecticut has
thirteen such stones dating 1749-1774. Others are scattered throughout
the southern part of Connecticut and are dated 1755-1773.

It appears that these stones may have been carved by William Lam-
son, Jr., who was born June 3, 1719 in Stratford and married Hannah Jud-
son. He had lived since 1740 in New Milford, an area where there are
many such stones, and where there is a probate record of his being paid
£15.10.11 by the estate of John Curtis, possibly for stones. Ernest
Caulfield, an authority on Connecticut gravestones, refers to "... such
excellent stonecutters as . . . William Lamson ..." when writing of carvers
in the Woodbury and New Milford area.^^ There is also a payment made
of £1-6-6 to William Lamson mentioned in an article by Meredith M.
Williams and Gray Williams, Jr.^^ William's date of death is not known.

204

Lamson Family Carvers

Fig. 26 Sarah Long, 1674, Charlestown

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The first Joseph Lamson carved in the 1670-1713 period, following
which his sons Nathaniel and Caleb took over the trade. These sons
carved until the late 1750s. The third generation began to carve in the
1740s, when Nathaniel's son, Joseph, and Caleb's son, John, became pro-
ductive. Since the fourth generation Lamsons were all born after 1760,
we can attribute stones of the 1740-1760 period to either the second or
third generations; those of the 1760-1775 period to the third generation
alone; those of the 1775-1789 period to both third and fourth genera-
tions; and those of the 1789-1818 period to the fourth generation (see
Appendix 4).

While the Lamson shop was basically a family affair, we should
always be aware that other carvers may have worked in the shop, espe-
cially Thomas Welch and Joseph Whittemore, who were undoubtedly

Ralph L. Tucker 205

associated with the Lamson shop. We also note that WilHam Custin, who
was a carver, was associated with Joseph Lamson, Jr., one of the Lamson
brothers. There was also apparently some connection between Daniel
Hastings and the later Lamsons, as some of their styles are almost iden-
tical. It is quite possible that they may have apprenticed together. Addi-
tional study would be required to resolve this matter.

This article is based on more than 1400 stones of the Lamson shop
that have been identified, but they are only a fraction of the stones still
existing. Personal observation and photographs furnish most of the
information for this study, though some is from notes and correspon-
dence which sometimes lack all the desired details of the carving. The
data is extensive enough, however, to furnish a comprehensive picture
of the family's work. The unique imp stones are the only ones that are
given full coverage in this study, and I believe I have reported on virtu-
ally all of them here.

The superb Daniel and Jessie Lie Farber collection of over four thou-
sand photographs is an invaluable source of information for all early
carver's work, including that of the Lamsons. Most of the illustrations in
this article are provided through the courtesy of the Farbers.

In concluding, it is worth reemphasizing that the Lamson shop pro-
duced many more stones than are commented upon here. The data is
very strong on the stones up to 1 760, dates that were relevant to the first
and second generations. When the styles of the third and fourth genera-
tions were recognized, a search for further data was made (up to the
early 1800s), but this investigation, to date, has been less extensive. A
summary of all data pertinent to this study may be found in Appendix 6.
As the data after 1760 is not as thorough as that of earlier periods, it goes
without saying that this constitutes a worthwhile and potentially fruitful
area for future investigation.

206 Lamson Family Carvers

NOTES

All photographs in this essay are by Daniel and Jessie Lie Farber, with the exception of Fig-
ure 1, which is from a glass negative of the Hariette Forbes collection, and Figure 2, which
is by Ralph Tucker. Figures 10 and 11 are from drawings of Ann Tucker. Figure 12 is a pho-
tograph by Daniel Farber of a rubbing by Susan Kelly and Ann Williams.

1 . For genealogical information see the Vital Records of Maiden and Charlestown, Mass-
achusetts. See also William J. Lamson, Descendants of William Lainson oflpsunch, Mass.
(New York, 1917), and Thomas Bellows Wyman, The Genealogies and Estates of
Charlestown (Boston, 1879.) A detailed bibliography is filed at the Association for
Gravestone Studies Archives in Worcester, Mass.

2. Samuel Drake, History and Antiquities of Boston (Boston, 1856), 418n: "Capt William
Turner in 1676 had about 100 men... was received at Marlborough from Capt.
Reynolds ... Joseph Lamson ..."

3. See appendix 5.

4. Essex Probate (Salem), 16:442, 450 ; 17:447,459 ; 85:118.

5. Theodore Chase and Laurel Gabel, Gravestone Chronicles (Boston, 1990), 53.

6. See Lloyd Grossman, " Heraldic Design on New England Gravestones," Old Time
Neio England, 64:2 (1973): 55-60.

7. Harriette Merrifield Forbes, Gravestones of Early Neiv England and the Men Who Made
Them (Boston, 1927; rpt. Princeton, NJ, 1955; rpt. New York, 1967; rpt. Barre, VT, 1989).

8. Ibid., 4^.

9. The Sarah Long stone (Fig. 26) exhibits some of the distinctive earmarks of the Old
Stonecutter. Compare this stone with that of her husband, Zechariah (Fig. 6), which
was undoubtedly carved by Joseph Lamson.

10. The probate references used herein have been compiled from Forbes' notes, a copy of
which is available at the archives of the Association for Gravestone Studies.

11. Middlesex Probate (Cambridge), 11:87; see Forbes, Fig. 43, for illustration.

12. Middlesex Probate (Cambridge), 12:514.

13. Middlesex Probate (Cambridge), 13:201; see Allan I. Ludwig, Graven Images (Middle-
town, Conn., 1966), Plate 172a, and Forbes, Fig. 42, for illustrations.

14. Middlesex Probate (Cambridge) 17:399; see Forbes, Fig. 44, for illustration.

Ralph L. Tucker 207

15. See Forbes, 22. There are seven known references to Thomas Welch in the Middlesex
Probate records (Cambridge). Those with asterisk specifically mention gravestones.

1690 William Barrett Cambridge £0.8.6

1697 *Mary and Thomas Rogers Billerica £0.12.0, M28:106

1697/8 ^Jonathan Caine Cambridge, £0.12.0, M9:263

1698/9 *JohnCleasby Charlestown £1.0.0, M9:100

1702 *DanielGold Charlestown £1.0.0, M10:514

1704 John Whittemore Charlestown £4.0.1, M6:427

n.d. Elizabeth Jackson (Mrs John.) Cambridge, £5.0.0

His inventory of 13 Dec. 1704 (Middlesex 6:505) mentions "working tools, viz Beetle,
Wedges, forks, rakes, axes, hows, chissils, hammers, planes, gouges, adsz, & other
tools & old iron - saddle & pillions & 2 old guns £4.18.8." Whittemore is mentioned as
a stonecutter (Middlesex 18:263), but none of the stones have been located.

16. See, for example. Chase and Gabel, 43.

17. Forbes, 24, 42.

18. Ludwig, 100.

19. Dickran Tashjian and Ann Tashjian, Memorials for Children of Change (Middletown,
Conn., 1974), 77.

20. Emily Wasserman, Gravestone Designs (New York, 1972), 22.

21. See David E. Stannard, The Puritan Way of Death (New York, 1977), 62, for reference to
Cotton Mather and "arrows of death." See also contemporary sermons.

22. Joshua Coffin, A Sketch of the Histori/ of Neiohimj, Newburyport , and West Nezcbun/
(Hampton, NH, 1977, reprint), 128.

23. Philippe Aries, The Hour of Our Death, trans. Helen Weaver (New York, 1981), 328.

24. Laurel Gabel, "A Compu tor-Aided Analysis of 10,546 Boston- Area Gravestone
Records." Address at the 1990 Association for Gravestone Studies Conference. A copy
may be found in the AGS Archives.

25. See Ludwig, plates 175a & b, for illustrations of the Blower and Russell stones.

26. Middlesex Probate (Cambridge) 43:187.

27. Middlesex Probate Vol. 23, General Records, p. 109.

28. This is the first Susanna Frothingham, b. 1724; Joseph of the fourth generation mar-
ried another Susanna Frothingham, who was b. 1768.

208 Lamson Family Carvers

29. Suffolk probate (Boston) 71:51 of 1783.

30. This is the second Susanna Frothingham, b. 1768.

31 . Middlesex Probate (Cambridge) #13530.

32. Ernest Caulfield, "James Stanclift," Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin, 17:1, (1952)
:5. In Markers: The Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies 8 (1991), in a revised
edition of this article, "William Lamson" reads "Nathaniel (?) Lamson" (p. 34).
Caulfield, in his notes made after initial publication, indicates that he was unsure
which Lamson was responsible for the Connecticut stones, but was sure it was some
member of the family. It is my opinion that the original article is correct.

33. Meredith M. Williams and Gray Williams, Jr., " 'Md. by Thomas Gold': The Grave-
stones of a New Haven Carver," Markers: The Journal of the Association for Gravestone
Studies 5 (1988) :56. The article quotes a probate record showing that the David Lattin
estate of Stratford, Conn, paid £1.6.6 "to William Lamson" for a gravestone.

Ralph L. Tucker

209

APPENDIX 1: DOWNLEAF STONES
108 Downleaf stones by Joseph Lamson, 1675-1714

Tympanum

Death's-heads

Draped

Cherubs

Leaf
Frieze

Death symbols

Strawberry vines

Imp (Bucknam)

Other

No frieze
Inscriptions

All upper-case lettering

Upper- and lower-case lettering

Base has "The Memory of the Just is Blessed'

With frame

Finials

Coils in finials

Finial faces

Fish eyed faces
Male faces
Female faces

Disks

Other

Bases

Leaf and disk
Strawberry vine
Leaf
Headstones having existing footstones

106

1675-1714

1679-1714

1703

1675-1713

1703-1713

1706

105

1675-1714

1710-1713

1679-1699

1680-1714

1675-1713

1693-1711

1693-1703

1705-1710

1706-1711

1703-1714

1691-1713

1702-1713

1691-1714

1691-1703

1693-1713

210 Lamson Family Carvers

APPENDIX 2: IMPSTONES

Date of Stones

Stones dated from 1671 to 1712

Time gap 1671-1683 due to backdating
Time gap 1692-1701 due to witchcraft

Carvers

Joseph Lamson 25 stones 1671-1706

Joseph Lamson - "NL" 5 stones 1707-1709

Lamson shop carvers 15 stones 1706-1712

Location

Charlestown 13 stones 1671-1709

Cambridge 10 stones 1683-1712

Maiden 3 stones 1692-1706

Boston, Copp's Hill 2 stones 1709-1712

Revere 2 stones 1706

Wakefield 2 stones 1709-1710

Watertown 2 stones 1691-1709

Woburn 2 stones 1692-1706

Andover 1 stone 1707

Boston, King's Chapel 1 stone 1688

Chelmsford 1 stone 1704

Lexington 1 stone 1709

Medford 1 stone 1701

Tympanum

All impstones have winged skulls with eyebrows

30 Stones with drape over skull 1686-1710

5 Stones with nothing over skulll 1671-1688

4 Stones with vine and drape over skull 1702-1709

5 Stones initialed "NL" 1707-1709
2 Stones with winged imps in tympanum 1686-1688
2 Stones with gourds and vine over skull 1709
2 Stones with hour glass and two winged imps 1686-1688
2 Double stones 1709-1712
2 Stones with skulls having coined wings 1671-1684
1 Stones with birds over skull 1704
1 Stones with fig and leaves over skull 1710

1 Stone with vine but no drape 1710

2 Broken stones 1705-1709

Frame

35 Stones with frame 1686-1712

6 Stones with no frame 1671-1706

Ralph L. Tucker 211

Frieze

36 Stones with all full face imps 1671-1712

28 "memento MORI" &" MORA fugit" 1689-1712

26 Stones with imps with pall 1705
23 Stones with central hour glass 1692-1712
10 Stones with imps & hour glass 1701-1710
10 Stones with central pillar 1671-1706
10 Stones with winged imp 1686-1702

6 Stones with imps with coffin

6 Stones with no pillar or hour glass, 1686-1706
4 Stones with darts 1686-1692

4 Stones with profile imp

3 Stones with crossed bones 1694-1703

2 Stones with plain bones 1701-1702
1 Broken stone with probable winged imps 1705
1 "memento te esse mortalem" (in inscription) 1683
1 Broken stone 1705
1 Broken stone 1705

3 Stones with no frieze 1686-1691

Side

27 Stones with fruit 1686-1712

7 Stones with leaf and gourd 1707-1712
6 Stones with coil leaf 1671-1692
3 Stones with fruit and gourds 1707-1708
1 Do wnleaf stone 1706

Bases

21 Stones with base borders 1 691 -1 71 2

14 Stones with probable base borders 1686-1712

5 Stones with no probable base border 1671-1706
1 Stone with no base border 1684

Titles

26 Men mentioned on stones

8 Men with no titles 1686-1707
5 Men with church titles

2 Rev. and /or Pastor 1704-1709

2 Deacon 1691-1705

1 Elder 1683
11 Men with military titles

5 Captain 1692-1709

3 Major 1706-1710

2 Men with "Major & Esquire" 1 706-1 71 0
2 Ensign 1694-1706
1 Lieutenant 1709

2 Men with "Mr" 1709-1712
19 Women mentioned on stones

212 Lamson Family Carvers

16 Wife 1671-1712

9 Mrs 1702-1712

3 Daughter 1706-1709

Lettering

34 Stones with upper-case lettering only 1671-1712

6 Stones with upper and lower-case lettering 1709-1712

1 Stone with upper and lower-case lettering in Latin 1704

Ages

45 Persons on 41 stones

Women 7m to 83 years.

Men 30 to 85 years

Depth of Stone Setting

Well set stones

Sunken to cover base border

Sunken covering some lettering

47.4 years average age
62.4 years average age

1684-1709
1671-1712
1683-1712

Ralph L. Tucker

213

APPENDIX 3: FIGURE STONES

All are in Mass. except as noteci

ABBREVIATIONS

]

F Frond

N Noi

arm holding trumpet

]

HG Hourglass

O One

' arm holding trumpet

]

f Numeral one =

Sc Script lettering

Some examples

Gabriel Stones

From trumpet

1753

Lambert, Thomas

Wakefield

J,N

Arise ye dead

1765

Nichols, Thomas

Wakefield

],o

Arise ye dead

1775

Lambert, Elizabeth

Wakefield

J,N

Arise ye dead

1778

Nichols, Elizabeth

Wakefield

J,o

Arise ye dead

1787

Ford, Samuel

Woolwich, ME

J,o

Know ye the hour

1790

Brooks, Noah

Lincoln

J,o

Arise ye dead

1790

Cummings, Margaret

Billerica

J,o

Arise ye dead [mirrored]

1790

Hinkley, Susanna

Barnstable

J,o

Arise th' dead

1791

Pool, Jonathan,Jr.

Wakefield

J,N,F

Think on death

1799

Gibbs, John Herpin

Ansonia, CT

J,N

[nothing]

1799

Hinkley, Mary

Barnstable

J, N, Sc

Arise ye dead

1800

Stimson, Nabby

Barnstable

N, italics

[nothing]

1804

Hinkley, Samuel

Barnstable

[nothing]

1806

Jones, Sylvanus

W. Barnstable

[nothing]

Figure Stones

1762

Perkins, Ann

Newburyport

Skeleton, scythe, bird, erasure

1773

Pearson, Jane

Byfield

Skeleton, scythe, HG

1774

Nasson, Mary

York, ME

Bust, Sc, J

1775

Robinson, John

Portland, ME

Skeleton, scythe, HG, imp, J

1776

Gwyn, Anthony

Newburyport

Bust, hat, sword

1776

McKean, Sarah

Ipswich

Bust, baby, F

1777

Knight, Samuel

Newburyport

3/4 figure, Sc, J

1780

Greenleaf, Benjamin

Newburyport

Bust, skull, HG, scythe, F

1781

Baldwin, Elizabeth

Maiden

Bust, F J

1782

Roberts, Thomas

Newburyport

Figure, Skeleton, scythe, F, Sc, J

1783

Lewis, Stoodly

Portsmouth, NH

Bust, F Sc, J

1784

Folsom, Mary

Portsmouth, NH

Bust, F Sc, J

1784

Stacey, Abigail

Newburyport

Bust, F Sc

1787

Harris, Polly

Charlestown

Bust, Skeleton, scythe, dart, F, J

1789

Fletcher, Grace

New Ipswich, NH

Bust, F J

1789

Williams, Sarah

Revere

Bust, Skeleton, scythe, dart, F, Sc

1792

Chapman, Micah

Dennis

Bust, F J

1801

Willis, Eliakim

Maiden

Bust, J

214

Lamson Family Carvers

APPENDIX 4: GENEALOGICAL CHART AND DATA

Joseph Lamson
1658-1722

Nathaniel

1692-1755

WilUam, Sr.
1694-1755

Caleb
1697-1760

Joseph
1728-1789

Joseph
1760-1808

David

carved 1799

WilUam, Jr.
1719-1759

Caleb

1760-1800+

John

1732-1776

Samuel
1773-1818

The dates in the tables below are approximate but may be helpful despite the variables.
This table assumes the following:

1) Joseph ceased carving about 1713 for the reasons given.

2) Carvers began carving at age fifteen.

3) A carver's earliest work was lettering.

4) Carvers carved to the date of death unless otherwise known.

5) The earliest carved figures are usually crudely carved.

30+years Joseph

5 years Joseph, Nathaniel

1 year Joseph, Nathaniel, Caleb

30 years Nathaniel, Caleb

4 years Nathaniel, Caleb, Joseph

8 years Nathaniel, Caleb, Joseph, John

5 years Caleb, Joseph, John
15 years Joseph, John

1 year Joseph, John, Joseph, Caleb

12 years Joseph, Joseph, Caleb

1 year Joseph, Joseph, Caleb, Samuel

19 years Joseph, Caleb (?), Samuel, David

10 years Caleb (?), Samuel, David (?)
Caleb (?), David (?)

1670S-1707
1707-1712
1712-1713
1713 -1743
1743 -1747
1747-1755
1755-1760
1760 -1775
1775-1776
1776-1788
1788-1789
1789-1808
1808-1818
1818 up

Note: The death date of the last Caleb is not known, and only one date of the David's carv-
ing is known.

Ralph L. Tucker 215

APPENDIX 5: LAND RECORDS

Exerpts from Record Commissioners Reports (Boston) Vol. 3:189-260

pg. 189 2 Jan 1681 "...to Sergt. Thomas Welch, six Comon & a quarter." "...to Thomas
Welch, junr, one common and three eights common.."

pg. 195 Proprietors 1681 #43 Thomas Welch 2 acres

pg. 196 1685"Thos Welch junr seven acres one half and twenty poles..."

pg. 197 "Sgt Thomas Welch, twenty one acres, bounded... minde there is within these
bounds of Welch one quarter of a acre left for a common quarry"

pg. 198ff "To a Quarry place Cont bounded north East'ly by the County rode to Meno-
tamies. North East'ly by Richard Lowden & Thomas Carter, Alias the high way
to Cambridge, west South'ly: by John Mousall West South'ly. Minde Cambridge
rode is South west'ly." 1685

pg. 216 "Thomas Welches house, ware mr Lampson now lives, from the door of the said
house to the street is 18 foot & 1/2" [from pg 262 Survey of Charlestown 1713-
1714]

pg. 218 "Jonathan Coves Southwest corner of his lott or pasture near the Quarries
incroached very much to the damage of the said highway... below the Quarry
hill... a little below Ralph Mousell's Quarrie... the said Ralph Mousells Quarrie
pit..." 1714

pg. 223 Landing place at bottom of Causivay "From Temples fence to Lamsons Shop, for-
merly Whittemores Land 454 feet." Wliarffe & Landing Place "...lying between
Lamsons shop & Fosdicks Shop, measuring in the front 33 feet 4 inches, & con-
tinues said with to low water mark, the North corner of Fosdicks Barn
encroached near the Wharffe & Lamsons Shop Encroached the front comer."

pg. 235 "The Quarry... there is about an acre of Land between Hunnewells & Rands:"
the bounds are given

pg. 236 "..formerly the Quarry Hill..." Penny Ferry Road "...From Whittermores Land,
where the house formerly was, just above Lamsons, across to Alfords Fence is 53
feet."

pg. 238 6th Range way starts measuring on Menotomy Road "...to the Quarrie Still
Southerly 79 rods. ..said Quarrie being on Kents Street." "...to Watson's, formerly
Quarrie Hill..."

pg. 243 "24th There is a wharffe and landing Place between Mr Fosdicke Shop & Mr
Lamsons Shop, which runs to low water mark which belongs to the Town." 2
March 1767

pg. 256 "...from Mr Lamsons gate to the east corner of Mr Smiths land, opposite, is 125
feet..." Poivder House Road

pg. 260 "Dirty Marsh Then we measured the road leading to dirty marsh (so called),
from Mousalls gate, or Lamsons, through Mr Andrew Kettells land, 47 rods 11
feet, in a northerly direction..."

216 Lamson Family Carvers

APPENDIX 6: DATA ON ALL LAMSON STONES

This data is mostly from personal observation and many photographs, some of which are
not easily readable, or which do not include the whole stone. Other data is from notes or
letters from correspondents.

Tympanum

no. of stones

Death's-heads

824

draped
browless

273
94

Cherub

221

with fig footstones

draped
Fig in tympanum
Rower in tympanum
Bust / figure / Gabriel
Tree /urn

80
78
35
25

Leaf in tympanum
Coat of arms

19
6

Death's-heads and cherub

Cherub and Tree & urn

Strawberry vine
Other

3
6

No information

Frieze

284

no frieze

with frieze

Downleaf stones

3
403

Imp stones
Death's-head stones

34
421

Cherub & death's-head

204

Cherub stone

Tree & urn stones

660

560

Finial

22 DEATH SYMBOLS

Crossbones and hourglass

Crossbones alone

Hourglass alone

Large imps

158 FACES

fish faces

1681 -1704/5

male faces

1704-1713

female faces

1705 -1717

male & female faces

1708 & 1712

busts

1709

Ralph L. Tucker 217

649 OTHER

376

disk

113

flower

110

coil

coil leaf

star

weeping disk

leaf alone

other ( odd, broken, etc)

196 NOTHING IN FINIAL
409 DATA NOT AVAILABLE

Side Border

Number of stones

Date used

Fig and leaf

176

1651 -1772

Leaf

167

1688 -1809

Fruit

144

1681 -1766

Lines

110

1742-1803

Downleaf

108

1675-1714

Leaf and gourd

106

1693-1721

Coil leaf

1679-1746

Vine

1689-1809

Coil leaf & fig

1723-1760

Odd fruit

1704-1712

Fat leaf

1709-1761

Other

No information

475
TOTAL 1430

1662-1808

218

Protestant Cemetery in Florence

Fig. 1 Overview of the Protestant Cemetery.
Anonymous photo, c. 1880.

219

THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY IN FLORENCE AND
ANGLO-AMERICAN AniTUDES TOWARD ITALY

James A. Freeman

When Americans or Britons died in Florence during the last century,
either while travelling or after voluntary exile, their gravemarkers some-
times eternalized their mixed judgment of the city (and of Italy in gener-
al). No matter how much northern visitors appreciated the low costs,
history, art, climate and scenery offered by the queen of Tuscany, they
rejected the current inhabitants and their burial customs. The Protestant
Cemetery in Florence symbolizes this curiously binary response to Italy,
an attraction /aversion reflex notable amongst those who spoke English.

Florence has always been a mecca for pilgrims eager to improve
something in their lives, but the earlier stream of aristocratic travellers
was augmented in the 1800s by a steadily increasing flood of sightseers
from many social levels. So many newcomers expressed themselves in
the same way that almost any of them can be quoted to demonstrate
what most grand tourists felt. Percy Bysshe Shelley's rapturous, "I have
seldom seen a city so lovely at first sight," echoed the visitors' initial joy.
Writing to Mary Shelley on August 20, 1818, he painted a word picture of
what innumerable others had noticed or would notice:

You see three or four bridges, one apparently supported by Corinthian
pillars, and the white sails of the boats, relieved by the deep green of the
forest which comes to the water's edge, and the sloping hills covered with
bright villas on every side. Domes and steeples rise on all sides, and the
cleanliness is remarkably great. On the other side there are the foldings of
the Vale of Arno above, first the hills of olive and vine, then the chestnut
woods, and then the blue and misty pine forests which invest the aerial
Apennines that fade in the distance. i

Once there, Atlantic-based visitors usually revelled in Florentine
activities. Some, like the enthusiastic Irishwoman Lady Morgan,
methodically did the sights (the published account of her 1819-20 jour-
ney fills two substantial volumes). Others, like Shelley when he sat in the
Cascine Park and composed his "Ode to the West Wind," responded to
less specific yet still powerful emanations from the city. Its magic
inspired parents as well as poets: in 1820, William Edward and Frances
Nightingale named their new-born daughter for the fabled town.^ Visi-

220 Protestant Cemetery in Florence

tors used it in ways that ranged from the expected to the idiosyncratic:
WilHam Dean Howells, like many lesser-known sightseers, sought out
one street mentioned in George Eliot's Romola (the historical novel of
Savonarola's time), while Edmund Gosse saw the city's two different
rivers as private symbols for his father's irreconcilable religious and sci-
entific aspects.3

However, behind this adulation lurked a determined stand-offish-
ness. Balancing one's admiration of things Italian with aversion for the
country's people became a linguistic formula. For example, a precocious
fourteen-year old girl wrote in her diary for Tuesday, November 17, 1817,
"this country with all the charms of climatel,] the fine arts and all the
richness and beauty of nature bears but weakly a comparison to Eng-
land. Nature is in perfection[,l but mankind is so degraded by vice that
people of a better nation tremble at the recital of their dreadful lives." In
the same tone, a mere four months after praising the majestic Tuscan
landscape to Mary, Shelley wrote Thomas Love Peacock, "External
nature in these delightful regions contrasts with and compensates for the
deformity and degradation of humanity."^

This propensity to resist Italian customs also inaugurated behavioral
formulas. English-speaking tourists who felt indisposed bypassed the
ancient pharmacy near Santa Maria Novella to patronize the Farmacia
Inglese on Via Tornabuoni; those who wished to expand their minds
read at the British Institute Library; those with spiritual yearnings wor-
shipped at St. James' Episcopalian or St. Mark's Anglican churches.
Whether in Florence for short or long visits, many strenuously pretend-
ed to be still at home or among more familiar people. In 1860, George
Eliot stayed at a Swiss-owned pension while beginning Romola. Return-
ing the next year with her companion George Lewes, Eliot emphasized
how little contact they had with residents: he spent his time in the library
doing background research, and, together, they visited only Mrs. Trol-
lope or walked at sunset, making sure to avoid "the slow crowds on the
Lung' Arno." Likewise, the expatriate Brownings remained essentially
British, praising the movement for Italian unity and choosing burial in
the city for Elizabeth, but mistrusting their Florentine servants. The testy
author of Imaginary Conversations, Walter Savage Land or (1775-1864),
also encouraged Italy's rebellion against the Austrians (he sold his watch
to finance Garibaldi's campaign in Sicily) and chose to be interred in Flo-
rence. Having spent two decades in the city, though, Landor took "no

James A. Freeman 221

interest whatever in the affairs of the Itahans. I visit none of them: I
admit none of them within my doors" (he pummeled Itahan workmen
who displeased him and once threw out his landlord when the poor
man forgot to remove his hat in Landor's presence). ^

The divided reaction of Anglo-Saxon visitors did not go unnoticed.
Personifying them, L. Villari summed up the dualities that Italians
sensed: "We pretend to love Italy, they say, yet have no liking for Italians,
do not care to know them.... Accordingly he [the native] is all the more
puzzled by the attitude of the travelling English, who unite deep rever-
ence for the Italy of the past with open indifference to the Italy of today."^
Villari's description held true for Britons and the relatively smaller num-
ber of American visitors. They, too, alternated between reverence and
revulsion. Mark Twain enjoyed the city while composing Pudd'head Wil-
son during 1892-93 (the chestnut cake was as good as in Dante's day, and
he loved "the most dream-like and enchanting sunsets to be found on
any planet")^; however, he had become so lost during an all-night ram-
ble on his first trip that he neglected the sights and snorted, "My experi-
ences of Florence were chiefly unpleasant. I will change the topic."

Throughout the nineteenth century, then, English and Americans
strolled on both sides of the Arno, eager to dream in the Medici palace
but loath to notice some flesh-and-blood contadino selling his vegetables.
The place they wished to see was the floridly romantic one in Henry
Holiday's popular painting "Dante and Beatrice." It shows the love-
struck poet holding his heart when his lady approaches (a moment
familiar to readers of his Vita Nuova) as well as landmarks along the
Arno (especially the Ponte Vecchio). Like other auglosassoni in more
remote countries, Egypt, say, and India, travellers tried to emulate Ali
Baba in the cave, gazing upon treasures while nervously avoiding any
touch. They preferred to see the city as a vast museum empty of every-
one except (as John Ruskin phrased it in the mid-1 870s) "English Trav-
ellers" studying "Christian Art." Learned aficionadas like Susan and
Joanna Horner supplied elaborate directions, chronologies and historical
anecdotes so that even the newcomer might take enriching Walks in Flo-
rence without the need of a native cicerone.^

The Protestant Cemetery at Porta a Pinti (often miscalled the "Eng-
lish" Cemetery) accepted inhumations between 1828 and 1877 and sym-
bolizes the cultural bias against Mediterranean custom displayed by the
very pilgrims who had sought out this eminently southern city. Origi-

222 Protestant Cemetery in Florence

nally, the cemetery lay at the city's northern outskirts, a quiet zone, usu-
ally safe from desecration by Catholic zealots.^ Much of it was built over
the ruined Ingesuati convent; part of it touched old walls reinforced
under Michelangelo's direction to defend the city against mercenary
armies of Germans and Spaniards led by Charles V during the siege of
1529-30. Thanks to the progressive plans of engineer Carlo Reistammer,
the ramparts were torn down in the early 1820s and a broad traffic cir-
cumvallation built around the 8,000 square meter oval.

By design or accident, this cemetery conformed to the most modern
European ideas of beauty and utility For roughly a quarter century
before its opening, theorists had recommended that cemeteries be built
outside of cities on elevated sites, open to purifying north winds, and
bordered by ornamental trees, which would sweeten the air, rather than
by walls.io A photo taken toward the end of the century shows this
model burial ground, facing the scenic hills Shelley had admired, a per-
fect locale for dreamless sleep (Fig. D.n It quickly became a goal for vis-
itors. The travel writer John Stoddard advertised its picturesque charms
two decades after it closed by stating, "There is a burial-place in Flo-
rence, dearer by far to all American hearts in its simplicity than even the
magnificent Santa Croce. It is the Protestant Cemetery''^^

Today, however, even before ringing the portiere's bell, the modern
visitor senses a gap between what the tenants wanted - a calm, green
knoll from which to look back on the monuments of quattrocento intellect
- and what they got. Thanks to the ironies of history, that bucolic spot,
renamed Piazzale Donatello, has become a traffic island which drivers
notice only because it complicates their straight avenue. Vespas and yel-
low double-decker buses noisily jockey for position and disregard sleep-
ers on the hill. Five famous paintings by the Swiss Arnold Bocklin
emphasize the change. Each "Island of the Dead" (one at New York's
Metropolitan Museum) was inspired by Porta a Pinti after Bocklin
buried his infant daughter there in its last year, 1877. The canvases com-
municate a silent otherworldliness that contrasts to the current tumult.
Famous as this metropolitan burial ground became, it could not exempt
itself from the general European pattern described by Philippe Aries:
"the cemetery had in about 1830 been situated outside the city but was
encompassed by urban growth and abandoned toward 1870 for a new
site.""

Within, too, the Cimitero Protestante seems busy. Even if members of

James A. Freeman 223

the Swiss Evangelical Reformed Church, the first and current owners,
had originally envisioned a simple burial ground like the Old Protestant
Cemetery in Rome, they ended up with a crowded necropolis superfi-
cially resembling models in the nearby city (San Miniato, for example). It
houses 1,409 people from at least sixteen nations. English are the most
numerous (760) and explain its epithet. But Swiss (433), North Ameri-
cans (eighty-seven), Italians (eighty-four) and Russians (fifty-four) lie
with Germans, Hungarians, and Poles. In life, many might have pre-
ferred the company of their own countrymen; here, they lose their
national identities and, obedient to Italian concerns about Cathohc or
non-Catholic, accept new neighbors.

Two main paths cross at right angles in the center of the oval and
almost hold the many monuments in a perilous balance. Otherwise,
there is no obvious visual symmetry. The columnar rond-point erected at
the paths' crossing by Frederick William IV of Prussia in 1858 does little
to discipline a viewer's eye. The monarch envisioned a general union of
Protestant sects and offered protection to the Evangelicals, a necessity
before the acts of religious toleration went into effect during the early
1860s. Frederick's project was darkened by two strokes in 1857, and his
cross-topped pillar, although connoting political order, is literally
obscured by stately cypresses. Their natural uniformity alone organizes
the varied human memorials beneath them.

Crowded though Porta a Pinti may be (like many contemporary
cemeteries in Italy and elsewhere), three important features distinguish
it from surrounding camposanti and, indeed, from the majority of burial
grounds everywhere. It cannot be called a representative resting place
where a statistically average number of aristocrats and poor sleep
together. Most graveyards contain native citizens from all social classes,
some famous, others who saved money all their lives to purchase a plot
and marker. Genoa's dramatic hillside Staglieno cemetery, for one, shel-
ters Giuseppe Mazzini and many of his renowned mille, the "thousand"
who liberated the nation from Austria, as well as a majority of ordinary
subjects. In Piazzale Donatello, however, many foreign celebrities
repose. Elizabeth Barrett Browning typifies an elite group that flourished
away from its native lands. No everyday person inspired Swinburne to
compose an epitaph such as now appears on the worn stone covering
Landor's remains. Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), once the star pupil
at Thomas Arnold's Rugby School, husband of Florence Nightingale's

224

Protestant Cemetery in Florence

cousin, protege of Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell and Charles Eliot Nor-
ton, is also interred here. His death, far from Anglo communities,
prompted Matthew Arnold's "Thyrsis," one of the most notable pastoral
elegies in English literature. The famous American sculptor Hiram Pow-
ers (1805-1873), praised for his portrait busts and neo-classical nudes,
moved to Florence in 1837 and stayed near the source of his glittering
carrara marble. Close to both these men, in a stately sarcophagus, repos-
es James Lorimer Graham (1838-1876), the respected editor of Graham's
Magazine (Fig. 2). He enthusiastically accepted President Grant's
appointment as Consul General in Florence and, exceeding his charge,
sought out a wide variety of people to help. He and his wife provided
quarters in their Villa Orsini on Via Valfonda for Claire Claremont,
mother of Byron's Allegra; at Christmas, they sold conspicuously non-
Italian evergreen trees and mistletoe along the Arno to benefit city pau-
pers. When Graham died at age thirty-eight, Florentines mourned him,
and Swinburne wrote a moving elegy for his burial.^^

The high percentage of notable exiles makes the Protestant Cemetery
unlike nearby Italian ones for a second reason. Few families repose
together. Porta a Pinti accepted inhumations for barely half a century, so

Fig. 2 Memorial to James Lorimer Graham, Jr. (1838-1876).

James A. Freeman 225

the linkages are restricted to husbands and wives or parents and chil-
dren, and these mainly among continental families. Perhaps the non-
conformists had been prepared psychologically for separation by the
Protestant emphasis upon direct communication, unmediated by clergy
or family, between God and individual believers.

The estrangement that death brings to any survivors here redupli-
cates itself, however: these sleepers had left our bright world, as every-
one must, but they departed from Florence, not their familiar London or
Boston or Basle. According to John Morley and James Stevens Curl, mid-
century English speakers eased the acceptance of death in their own
lands with consoling rituals. In Florence, several Hope-and-anchor or
child-soul-flying-to-heaven statues display this characteristic Victorian
optimism. Nonetheless, the general impression is of individualism in
death. Contemporary painters sometimes implied that dying anywhere
still held much terror. Their canvases remind us how, unlike most deaths
in Florence, these of foreigners happened among strangers rather than
kin and must have caused special anxiety.is

One extraordinary monument in Porta a Pinti, a jarringly medieval
reaper erected by a fond father and brother for a 17-year old girl, under-
scores the isolation required because of citizenship or religion. Andrea di
Mariano Casentini (1853-1870) rests under a scythe-wielding skeleton
that clashes with the usual mid-nineteenth century emblems of consola-
tion (Fig. 3). Rather than easing the survivors' grief, it preaches a moral
more reminiscent of Savonarola and Cotton Mather than John Wesley.
The skeleton suggests how tenuous was the supposed resignation to
death, at least among some exiles.

A final distinctive feature: the memorials of these family-less nota-
bles may differ from one another, but each resolutely marks the perma-
nent abode of the deceased. Tenants disregarded the European custom
(employed as well in New Orleans' Saint Louis cemeteries) of burying
the dead for a few years and then digging up the remains so they might
be reinterred in a wall niche (even today, the normal subterranean tenure
in Venice's island cemetery, San Michele, is a mere ten years). ^^ Rather,
these varied stones imply a final abode in which the loved one can rest
forever, free from translation as soon as the fee for below-ground privi-
lege has been exhausted. Like the English dead in Thomas Gray's coun-
try churchyard, "Each [is] in his narrow cell forever laid."i''

This permanence may be due to the absence of an established church

226

Protestant Cemetery in Florence

Fig. 3 Memorial to Andrea di Mariano Casentini (1853-1870).

with adjacent open ground (the Evangelical Church's historian Andre
lists at least six buildings in Florence used for worship during years that
the cemetery was open). Also, social custom changed, and many sur-
vivors preferred to let the loved one remain in the city. An earlier habit of

James A. Freeman 227

shipping non-Catholic bodies to Livorno became difficult when the Flo-
rentine Protestant community grew. Because expatriates tried to cling to
practices of their original lands, while also adjusting to meet local needs,
the segregation by class, the deemphasis of family, and the habit of eter-
nal inhumation should not surprise us.

What might give us pause, however, are the obvious ways that the
monuments in the Protestant cemetery, which range from simple to
extravagant, defy most concessions to regional custom. Only one head-
stone, whose year cannot be read, conforms to a common Italian type.
Although tall grass now grows from the plot in front of the curved,
upright slab, it bears, in the fashion of mid-century stones on both sides
of the Atlantic, a picture of the deceased. The touching epitaph, though,
appears to be quite Mediterranean. Twenty-three-year old Bianca Bian-
chini died after less than one month of marriage. Her motto turns upon
a conceit: "Povera Bianca / U tuo velo minziale / dopo 24 gionii / si cambid in
drappo fimereo" ("Poor Bianca. Your wedding veil, after twenty four days,
was changed into a funeral wrapping"). Such sentiment might seem
more in keeping with the flamboyant Italians than the rational northern-
ers. True, John Dryden had expressed the same paradox when he wrote
these lines "Upon the Death of Lord Hastings" in 1649: "Must noble
Hastings immaturely die, / The honor of his ancient family, / Beauty
and Learning thus together meet, / To bring a Winding for a Wedding-
sheet!" But the English author was barely nineteen, and the taste of his
age admitted metaphysical wit. A parallel conceit occasionally appears
on English stones. Ainsworth's Magazine for 1842 records an inscription
"at Kensal Green" that complements that of Bianca: "The coffin must be
her bridal bed, / The winding sheet must wrap her head." John Morley
rightly characterizes the verse as "ineptly romantic," and 1 suspect that
the English sleeper came from a social class below that of most Anglo-
Florentines, i^

The concentrated emotion evident in Bianca's italianate stone seems
to contrast with the severe factuality commemorating another prema-
turely dead bride, this one an Englishwoman. William Holman Hunt,
the Pre-Raphaelite painter, married Fanny Waugh on December 28, 1865.
He was determined to show her the Holy Land (he had visited it in the
previous decade), but a cholera epidemic diverted the newly-weds to
Fiesole. There Fanny died at age thirty-three, soon after giving birth to a
child also destined to perish. The memorial Hunt designed is a curvilin-

228

Protestant Cemetery in Florence

ear domed coffin resting on foam-like stone which, in turn, sits upon a
soHd rectangular pediment (Fig. 4). The simple plaque attached to the
north side of the base, the one facing Elizabeth Barrett Browning's mon-
ument, reads, "FANNY / the wife of / W. HOLMAN HUNT / died in
florence Dec. 20. 1866 / in the first year of her marriage." Restraint and a
hope of salvation mingle - the streamlined coffin has cross-like decora-
tions at either end that result from an ornamental fillet resembling a true-
love knot. Hunt's piety apparently furnished him with a security that
needed no mannerist cleverness to express itself.

But the same memorial that announces Hunt's resistance to Italy
("one who sees her young is lost") also communicates another gesture,
of personal guilt, perhaps, or florid romantic despair. Hunt anxiously
supervised the carving of this marker (a common ritual for survivors). If
cemeteries must sum up the deceased, they also materialize fantasies of
the living. Hunt's life had already been complicated by questions of inti-
macy. His paintings reveal a preoccupation with sexuality. Timothy
Hilton notes how "the Shakesperean scenes which fascinate Hunt are
those in which are displayed a strong sense of sin and sexual guilt."
Illustrating Measure For Measure in 1860, for instance. Hunt chooses the

Fig. 4 Memorial to Fanny Waugh Hunt (1833-1866).

James A. Freeman

229

Fig. 5 William Holman Hunt, "Isabella and the Pot of Basil," 1867.
Courtesy Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

230 Protestant Cemetery in Florence

moment when Isabella reveals to her brother Claudio that she refused to
sleep with Angelo, the temporary ruler, in exchange for a pardon from
death for the helpless Claudio. In another instance ("A Street Scene in
Cairo: The Lantern Maker's Courtship"), Hunt pictured a grinning Arab
lantern maker who feels the contours of his beloved's face beneath her
veil. This interest in disovering a hidden lover, here expressed in a play-
fully erotic way, reappears in his illustration for John Keats' poem
"Isabella and the Pot of Basil" (Fig. 5). The macabre tale, originally in
Boccaccio's Decameron, tells how the distraught Isabella learned from her
lover's ghost that he had been murdered by her snobbish brothers. She
digs up his head and hides it in a pot of basil, which she visits daily and
waters with her tears. i^

I suggest that Hunt's anxiety about the dark trinity of god-sex-death
encodes itself in the outwardly simple sarcophagus he chose for Fanny.
Its rounded end copies the shape of the basil pot, and it may recall those
many hours that Fanny, sick with her difficult pregnancy, posed in
scorching heat for sketches of Isabella. A portrait of Fanny finished in
1868 shows her with a neat bow at her throat - reminiscent of the fillet on
the sarcophagus. Behind her, a mirror reflects the chandelier, a curved
urn, and a shallow glass bowl four times. Possibly the painter reused the
familiar shapes for Fanny's monument because he longed for her to
return just as, in his painting, the lights and the curved objects on the
mantel repeat their existence.^o

Many markers for other English speakers in the Protestant Cemetery
resisted Italian culture by claiming that the deceased's real life was lived
far from Florence. Like the English in Victoria, British Columbia, who
planted old world yew, holly and boxwood trees in Ross Bay Cemetery
so that the new world pines would not dominate their last home, the
planners of several stones in Florence wanted to recall those lands the
dead had left behind, not the one in which they died. Sir David Dumb-
reek (1805-1876), a professional soldier originally from Scotland, served
in the Crimea and advertised his military identity by displaying five
medals, including the K.C.B., on his stone (Fig. 6). Gilbert and Sullivan's
H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) laughs at the inept Sir Joseph Porter and his
K.C.B., but Sir David's memorial communicates a patriotic seriousness
unlike that of a comic "monarch of the sea." Dumbreck's classical
upright slab and simple iron fence mark off a space appropriate for one
who respected tradition and clear boundaries. His method of eternaliz-

James A. Freeman

231

Fig. 6 Memorial to Sir David Dumbreck (1805-1876).

232 Protestant Cemetery in Florence

ing martial accomplishment reappears in northern monuments. A
French nurse major ("Infermiere Major") born in the decade of Sir
David's death, Maman Perdon (1872-1954) lies in the cemetery of St. Vin-
cent, Paris, and displays twelve medals on her uniform.21

The marker of another soldier, "LIEUTN GENERAL JOHN FOXE /
OF NEWCASTLE IRELAND / WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE THE 26 OF
FEBRUARY 1837 AGED 67," deftly combines southern and northern
motifs to emphasize his allegiance to the British Isles (Fig. 7). At the cen-
ter of Foxe's cross is featured a pelican in its piety, found throughout
Europe as an emblem of sacrificial love. Dante calls Jesus "nostro pelli-
cano,'"^"^ and recalls the long identification of Christ with the bird that
reputedly revives its young by lacerating its own breast and feeding
them with his blood. However, as if to prove the truth of Foxe's pilgrim
motto ("THE JUST PASSETH THROUGH DEATH UNTO LIFE"), the
upright and two arms of his almost- Celtic cross echo the shape of the
three tri-lobed shamrocks pictured on the end pieces. This plant directs
one's attention, not to Christendom in general, but to Ireland. Shamrocks
may indicate his belief in the Trinity; still, their most immediate associa-
tion for a countryman would be geographical, not theological. The Gen-
eral's family crest at the base adds a further element to this bi-cultural
cross and creates a new triad of adopted nation / original homeland /
family that bespeaks a longing for personal significance no matter what
the immediate region might be.

A similar urge to pretend that the deceased lay under familiar skies
may be felt when one stands before the memorial to Theodore Parker
(1810-1860) (Fig. 8). The famous Boston transcendentalist minister, whom
his friend Emerson called "our Savonarola" because he spoke so elo-
quently against the Mexican War and in favor of John Brown, runaway
slaves and Native Americans, rests under a dignified protrait-and-legend
marker. John Hart sculpted it shortly after his death and meant to remind
visitors of Parker's amazing oratorical skills. Across the wide ocean,
Leonard Wood (1774-1864), another noted preacher, sleeps in the Phillips
Academy Cemetery, Andover, Massachusetts, facing Harriet Beecher
Stowe (Fig. 9). Wood's marker, sadly worn now, once displayed a striking
profile and engraved biography, and shows how traditional was Parker's
monument (as if to reaffirm Parker's New England identity, a Massachu-
setts pine was originally planted behind the stone in Florence).^^

The two clearest reminders of a distant homeland mark the graves of

James A. Freeman

233

Fig. 7 Memorial to Lieutenant General John Foxe (1770-1837).

234

Protestant Cemetery in Florence

Fig. 8 Memorial to Theodore Parker (1810-1860).

James A. Freeman

235

Fig. 9 Memorial to Rev. Leonard Wood (1774-1864).
Philips Academy Cemetery, Andover, Mass.

236

Protestant Cemetery in Florence

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) and Frances Trollope (1780-
1863). On June 29, 1861, Mrs. Browning died in Robert's arms, having
just kissed him. Her burial took place on Monday, July 1, at 7 p.m.
Although she had worshipped with Dissenters during their fifteen-year
residence in the city, Robert preferred to hear "those only words" which
began the Anglican service. Thus, the chaplain of the English church
officiated. Soon afterward, Robert sketched the preliminary design for a
monument; Lord Frederic Leighton did the detailed plan; Giovannozzi
sculpted it. Leighton already had an affinity for the Brownings. His sen-
timental picture of honeymooners who hold hands while the man draws
might have illustrated his friends' loving relationship. Robert, in turn,
eased Leighton's worry about creating a fit memorial ("Don't fret; you
will do everything like yourself in the end, I know").24

Elizabeth's monument (Fig. 10) blends ancient. Renaissance and
modern motifs, so that anyone who knew her would have understood
that her ideals were being translated into stone. The laurel-crowned
female in the medallion may be any one of three women. Perhaps
Leighton meant it to portray Elizabeth. When William Wordsworth died
in 1850, Elizabeth, not the less famous Robert, was put forward to be the

Fig. 10 Memorial to Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861).

James A. Freeman

237

Fig. 11 Memorial to Frances TroUope (1780-1863).

238

Protestant Cemetery in Florence

Fig. 12 Memorial to the Magoun family.
Mount Auburn Cemetery, Boston, Mass.

James A. Freeman 239

new poet laureate of England. Then again, the woman may be Poetry in
general or Elizabeth's fictional alter ego, Aurora Leigh, a poet who
pluckily forged a life and profession for herself. The medallion is brack-
eted by lilies, symbol of Florence and, in the Brownings' private mythol-
ogy, of freedom from Britain's cold climate, her harsh father and the
repressive Austrians.

One last monument to both a person and a life away from Italy was
erected by Frances Trollope's dutiful son. Her long career (1780-1863)
ended on October 6, 1863. Thomas Adolphus Trollope soon after placed
this touching memorial (Fig. 11). The grieving female kneels in profound
meditation, praying and perhaps regretting that she must leave the
world she had enjoyed for so long. During most of Mrs. Trollope's twen-
ty-year stay in Florence, her salon attracted eminent visitors, eager to
meet the author of some thirty novels and savor her famous wit (her last
home, where she staged amateur plays, is still known as Villino Trol-
lope). We may ask why the ebullient woman should be eternalized by
such a plorante, but an analogous monument in Boston's Mount Auburn
Cemetery (Fig. 12) once again shows how formulaic were these sculpt-
ings. The somber Magoun monument echoes that of Mrs. Trollope and
demonstrates that Anglo-Saxon tradition sometimes eclipsed individual
statements.25

While these voluntary exiles were simultaneously absorbing Italian
culture in life and rejecting it at death, Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1860
wrote in The Marble Faun (a novel inspired by the author's own travels in
Italy), "bad as the world is said to have grown, innocence continues to
make a paradise around itself, and keep it still unfallen."^^ Whatever a
modern viewer might feel about the colonialist mentality of the sleepers
in Florence, 1 should like to think that they would welcome such a
respectful description, and understanding, of their final resting place.

NOTES

Partial support for research was provided by the Graduate School, Uruversity of Massa-
chusetts, Amherst. In addition, I have profited from the comments of colleagues. Professors
Gary Aho, Robert Bagg, Paul Mariani, and Meredith B. Raymond, as well as from respon-
dents to short versions presented to the American Culture Association, Toronto, March,
1990, the Association for Gravestone Studies, Bristol, RI, June, 1990, and the anonymous
reviewers for Markers. Professor Sara and Doctor Anna Volterra, who live near Porta a
Pinti, have done so much for me that Anglo-Saxon words fail to express my profound grat-
itude. All photographs were taken by the author, with the exception of Fig. 1, which is in

240 Protestant Cemetery in Florence

the public domain, and Fig. 5, which is reproduced courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum,
Wilmington, Delaware.

1. Quoted in Newman Ivey White, Shellex/ (New York, 1940), 2:31-32. C. P. Brand dis-
cusses "Italo-mania" in Italy and the English Romantics. The Italianate Fashion in Early
Nineteenth-Century England (Cambridge, Eng., 1957). Harry W. Rudman continues the
history of English involvement with Italy through the 1860s in Italian Nationalism and
English Letters. Figures of the Risorgimento and Victorian Men of Letters (London, 1940).
John Pemble offers a superb general account of visitors to countries such as Greece
and Egypt, as well as Italy, in The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians and Edwardians in
the South (Oxford, 1988).

2. Lady Morgan, Italy. Being the Substance of a Journal of Her Residence in That Country
[1819-20], New Edition, 2 vols. (London, 1824). A memorial lapide on a wall in the first
cloister of Santa Croce opposite the Pazzi chapel honors the birth of Miss Nightingale.

3. William Dean Howells, Tuscan Cities (Boston and New York, 1894), 15. Edmund
Gosse, Father and Son (Boston, 1907, Rpt. 1965), 74-75.

4. Harriet Charlotte Beaujolois Campbell, A Journei/ To Florence in 1817 , ed. G. R. de Beer
(London, 1951), 126-27. Shelley's letter of December 22, 1818, from Naples, is in Eng-
lish Romantic Poetry and Prose, ed. Russell Noyes (New York, 1956), 1113.

5. George Eliot, Letters, ed. Gordon S. Haight (New Haven, Conn., 1954). Pension: 3:294;
walks, 3:419. "In Memory of Walter Savage Landor" may be found in Swinburne's
Poems and Ballads. First Series (London, 1889), 153-55. C.P Brand captures the spirit of
this contradictory man, offering the anecdotes cited and then reminding us, "Yet there
was always something Italian which attracted the exiles: with Landor it was the litera-
ture": Italy and the English Romantics, 12.

6. L. Villari, "Italians and English," The National Review 9 (November 1883): 371.

7. Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins, ed. Sidney E. Berger
(New York, 1980), 1-2. The second quotation is from The Innocents Abroad (New York,
1911), 167.

8. See John Ruskin, The "Works, eds. E. T Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, vol. 23 (Lon-
don, 1906), which contains Val D'Arno (1874), The Aesthetic and Mathematic Schools of
Florence (1874), and Mornings in Florence: Being Simple Studies of Christian Art for Eng-
lish Travellers (1875-77). Susan and Joanna Horner, Walks in Florence, 2 vols. (London,
1873).

9. In his 1 877 Notice Historique sur le Cimetiere de I'Eglise Evangelique Reformee de Florence a
Porta Pinti, Gustave Dalgas recounts an incident from the cemetery's early days when
vandals, "inspires par le fanatisme," climbed the walls and ruined flowers, hedges,
and monuments. The "profanation" was not repeated, and Dalgas notes the general
benevolence of the populace and the government. The Notice is reprinted as an
appendix in Tony Andre, L'Eglise Evangelique Reformee de Florence depuis son Origine
jusqu'a nos Jours (Rorence, 1899), 283-308. Profanation: 287.

James A. Freeman 241

10. Richard A. Etlin, The Architecture of Death. The Transformation of the Cemetery in Eigh-
teenth-Centiir\j Paris (Cambridge, Mass, 1987), 300.

11. The old photo also adorns the title page of a small guide by Luigi Santini, // Cimitero
Protestante detto «degli Inglesi» in Firenze (Firenze, 1981).

12. John Stoddard, Lectures, vol. 8 (Boston, 1903), 78. Modern Italians also respond to the
cemetery's spell. See Franco Forini's poem, "Camposanto degli Inglesi," in The New
Italian Poetry, 1945 to the Presoit. A Bilingual Anthology, ed. and trans. Lawrence R.
Smith (Berkeley, Cal., 1981), 46-49.

13. Philip Aries, Westejit Attitudes Toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present, trans.
Patricia M. Ranum (Baltimore, 1974), 97.

14. Clara Louise Dentler conveniently summarizes biographical information for Graham
and others in Famous Foreigners in Florence, 1400-1900 (Firenze, 1964). Graham: 101-
102, 300. A more complete study is Giuliana Artom Treves, Anglo-Fiorentini di cento
annifa (Firenze, 1953).

15. John Morley, Death, Heaven and the Victorians (London, 1971). James Stevens Curl, The
Victorian Celebration of Death (London, 1972). Several paintings illustrate the themes of
terror and loss. Arthur Hughes' "Home From the Sea" (1863) shows a young sailor
weeping in an English cemetery, obviously returned too late to have comforted the
departed. Thomas Charles Farrer's "Gone! Gone!" (1860) portrays a forlorn woman,
perhaps pregnant, against a seascape, hinting that her lover/ husband will not return.
In "Vail of Rest" (1858), John Everett Millais depicts nuns burying their dead, but he
disconcerts the viewer by having one nun stare directly out of the canvas. In Henry
Alexander Bowler's "The Doubt. Will These Bare Bones Live Again?" (1858), a young
woman leans on a gravemarker and ponders newly unearthed bones.

16. Conversation with Fr Vittorino Meneghin, Prior, Franciscan Convent, San Michele,
Venice, June, 1989.

17. Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," in The Norton Anthology of
English Literature, ed. M.H. Abrams, et al, 5th Ed. (New York, 1986), I: 2480-2483.

18. John Dryden, "Upon the Death of Lord Hastings," in Vie Works of ]ohn Dryden, ed.
Edward Niles Hooker and H.T. Swedenberg, Jr (Berkeley, Cal., 1961), 1: 3-6. The Ken-
sal Green epitaph is quoted in Morley, 43.

19. Timothy Hilton, The Pre-Raphaelites (New York, 1974), 86. There are two versions of
"Isabella and the Pot of Basil," both painted in 1867, one at Laing, Newcastle-upon-
Tyne, the other at the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington. Roland Elzea intelligently
discusses the latter version in The Samuel and Mari/ R. Bancroft, Jr. and Related Pre-
Raphaelite Collections (Wilmington, Del.: Delaware Art Museum, 1984), 66-68. Hunt's
fascination with grieving is also evident in his 1849 engraving, "Of My Lady in
Death," reproduced in John NicoU, The Pre-Raphaelites (London, 1970), 38.

20. Collection of Paul A'Court Bergne. Reproduced in Mary Bennett, William Holman

242 Protestant Cemetery in Florence

Hunt: An Exhibition by the Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool, 1969), plate 76. Hunt lament-
ed to a fellow artist on November 19, 1867, that he had no likeness of Fanny: "I wish
so much you had done one of my dear wife." A few lines later. Hunt mentions "sweet
'Isabella' mourning over her pot of basil," a significant juxtaposition. See A Pre-
Raphaelite Friendship. The Correspondence of William Holman Hunt and John Lucas Tupper,
eds. James H. Coombs, et al. (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1986), 79.

21 . John Adams supplied the data on Ross Bay at the American Culture Association con-
vention, St. Louis, 1989. The prototype for Porter was a land-locked bookseller named
W. H. Smith whom Disraeli appointed First Lord of the Admiralty at the time of Sir
David's death. Judi Culbertson and Tom Randall picture Maman Perdon's memorial
in Permanent Parisians. An Illustrated Guide to the Cemeteries of Paris (Chelsea, VT.,
1986), 138. [Editor's Note: The practice of depicting medals on gravemarkers is an
important (and ongoing) French funerary tradition: monuments bearing such decora-
tion are frequently found in cemeteries throughout the country.]

22. Dante, Paradiso 25. 113. Near Foxe's marker lies Clara Mathilde Westznthius nee Sal-
vetti (1802-1863). Her elaborate memorial, a compendium of symbols such as the
reversed tedae, burning heart, phoenix, and cross-holding, upwardly-pointing
woman, also displays on its front a similar pelican.

23. John Weiss describes Parker's memorial in Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, 2
vols. (New York, 1864), 2:441-42. The Savonarola epithet appears in Henry Steele
Commager, Theodore Parker (Boston, 1936), ix.

24. Leonee and Richard Ormond reproduce the plan in Lord Leighton (New Haven and
London, 1975), plates 98, 99, 100. Leighton's "The Painter's Honeymoon" is in the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Mrs. Russell Barrington prints Browning's letter, dated
August 30, 1863, in The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton, 2 vols. (New York,
1906), 2:65.

25. Helen Heineman, Mrs. Trollope: The Triumphant Feminine in the Nineteenth Century
(Athens, Ohio, 1979), 297, quotes the mock epitaph which fun-loving Frances com-
posed and might have preferred to have inscribed on her monument:

I Mrs. Trollope

Made these vols, roll up;

And when Heaven shall take my soul up

My works will fill a big hole up.

26. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun (New York, 1958), 321.

243

Contributors

C. Fred Blake is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University
of Hawaii. He has conducted and published ethnographic studies in
rural Hong Kong and Among Chinese Americans in Honolulu and in
the midwestern United States.

David Vance Finnell has degrees in American history and English liter-
ature from Washington & Lee University and the University of Texas at
San Antonio. Currently an English teacher at Flint High School in Oak-
ton, Virginia, he taught English at the United States Military Academy,
West Point, New York, from 1982-1986. His articles have appeared in Civil
War and Blue mid Gray magazines.

James A. Freeman is Professor of English at the University of Massachu-
setts/Amherst. Author and editor of works on British poet John Milton,
he has also written about subjects ranging from the Biblical Samson to
Donald Duck. He is currently completing a book on the subject of Amer-
ican radio from 1928-1955.

David M. Gradwohl, Professor of Anthropology at Iowa State Universi-
ty, lists as his principal research interest the relationship of ethnicity and
material culture. His published books and articles have dealt with the
prehistory, archaeology, and ethnoarchaeology of the Prairies and Plains.
A past president of the Plains Anthropological Society, he is currently a
member of the Board of Editors of the National Association for Ethnic
Studies.

Stephen Petke holds degrees in business administration and American
Studies from Connecticut State University and Trinity College. A life-
long resident of Connecticut, he has concentrated his research on the
colonial gravestones of the Farmington Valley.

Ralph L. Tucker is a retired clergyman who has been involved with
genealogical research and the study of New England gravestones since
the early 1960s. He was the first president of the Association for Grave-
stone Studies, and in 1992 was recipient of the organization's Harriette
M. Forbes Award. His article on the Mullicken Family gravestone
carvers of Bradford, Massachusetts appeared in Markers IX.

244

Index

Boldface page numbers indicate illustrations

Adams, Ezra 37

Adams, Hannah 37

Adams, Matthew 10, 11

Adath Jeshurun Synagogue and Cemetery

(Louisville, KY) 116, 124, 125, 126, 140,

142
Agudath Achim Congregation and

Cemetery (Louisville, KY) 116, 124,

125, 142, 143
Ainsworth's Magazine 227
Alcock, Benjamin 182
Alexandria Marble Works 106
Alexandria, VA 91-115
Allen, James 186
Angier, Hannah 186
Anshei Sfard Synagogue and Cemetery

(Louisville, KY) 116, 124, 125, 126,

134-142
Aries, Phillipe 169-170, 222
Ayres, Sarah 152

Barber, Calvin 1-51,36

Barber, Daniel 2, 12, 15

Barber, Jared 27

Barber, Martha (Phelps) 2

Barrett, Mary 178

Beach, Ephraim 179

Bell Rock Burial Ground (Maiden, MA)

154, 200
Bestor, Dudley 30,33
Bestor, Henry 29
Bestor, Horace 27
Bestor, John 29
Beth Hamedrash Hagodol Synagogue

(Louisville, KY) 122, 125
Beth Israel ("Polish") Synagogue

(Louisville, KY) 124
Bianchini, Bianca 227
Bird, Jonathan 15-17,16
Blanchard, Samuel 179
Blower, Pyam and Elizabeth 166, 173, 179
B'nai Jacob Synagogue (Louisville, KY)

122, 125
Boston Museum of Fine Arts 186
Bocklin, Arnold 222

Boylston Street Burial Ground (Boston,

MA) 200
Brigham, Samuel 185, 186
Brith Shalom Congregation and Cemetery

(Louisville, KY) 116, 122, 124, 126-128,

130
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett 220, 223, 228,

236, 236-239
Browning, Robert 220, 236
Bucknam, Marcy 162
Burchstead, John 188
BurrilLJohn 188
But, Jim 67,67

Cambridge Burial Ground (Cambridge,

MA) 154
Canton Delta (China) 76-78, 87
Carter, Ann 160
Case, Amasa, Jr. 33
Case, Deborah 6, 7
Case, Elizabeth 24,27
Case, Farrend 37
Case, Job 20
Case, Mary 29
Case, Moses 20
Case, Seymour 33
Case, Wealthy 29

Casentini, Andrea di Mariano 225, 226
Caulfield, Ernest 203
Cave Hill Cemetery (Louisville, KY) 116,

118, 143, 143
Charlestown, MA 151-217
Chataigne's Alexandria City Directory 104
Chatham, James 101-104,101-102
Chauncey, William 104
Chen Family 85

Cheuhng-Kzving Leih gung mouh 58, 59, 66
Chin,Juanita 61,75,75
Chiu, Seng 60, 61, 84
Chyuhn-Sauh Leuhng giing mouh 54, 63
Chung Family 85

Cimetiere St. Vincent (Paris, France) 232
Claremont, Claire 224
Clark, Mary 18,18
Clark, Thomas 173

245

C.L Neale & Sons Marble Yard 91-115, 92

Clough, Arthur Hugh 223-224

Codner, Abraham 35

Colgate, Edward 92

Connecticut Couraitt 27

Cooper, Anna 186

Copps Hill Burial Ground (Boston, MA)

173, 193
Cowles, John 15
Curl, James Stevens 225
Custin, William 153, 204-205
Cuvillier, Jane P. 95, 97

DangSei-Chih 70
Da vies, J- W. 108
Des Moines, I A 117
de sola Pool, David 127-128
De Vaughn, John 92
Dickenson, Selah 26, 29
Dickson, William 163, 165
Dryden, John 227
Dumbeck, David 230,231

Eliot, George 220
Ellsworth, Elmer 100
Ensign, Love 8, 9
Ensign, Zebe 27

Farber, Daniel and Jessie Lie 205
Farmer, Mary 193
Farmington Valley vi, 1-51
Fletcher, James 27
Fletcher, Samuel 157, 161
Florence, Italy 219-242
Folsom, Mary 197
Foo, Ching 53

Forbes, Harriette 154, 156, 159, 164
Foxe,John 232,233
Freemasonry (Masonic Orders) 17
Frederick William IV of Prussia 223

Gardner, Margaret 182

Gay Richard 19,22

Goodrich, David 37

Gosse, Edmund 220

Gradwohl, Hanna Rosenberg 117

Gradwohl, Hattie Hilpp 117,118

Graham, Freeman 35

Graham, James Lorimer 224, 224

Graham, Lydia 34, 35

Granary Burial Ground (Boston, MA) 190

Gray, Thomas 225

Green, Morris 137,140

Greenleaf, Benjamin 198

Griffin, Ruth 32, 35

Grimes, Joseph 182

Grimes, William 182,184

Gwyn, Anthony 186,187,198

Hale, Sarah 194

Hammond, John and Prudence 157

Harlow Family monument 105, 106

Harrington, Henry 27-29

Harrington, Stephen 27-29

Harris, Polly 195, 198

Hart, John 232

Hartshorne, John 152

Hartshorne, Thomas 152

Hastings, Daniel 196, 205

Hawthorne, Nathaniel 239

Hayes, Hilphah 37

Hays, Asa 27

Hays, Eden 27

Hays, Samuel 20,22

Hays, Simeon 22

Herman Meyer and Son Mortuary

(Louisville, KY) 122
Hilpp, Elias and Theresa Maas 118-122,

121, 145
Hilpp, Samuel 117, 118, 145
Hilton, Timothy 228
Holcomb, Henry J. and Harriet 22
Holcomb, Luther 22
Holcomb, Nancy and Candice 22
Holiday, Henry 221
Hong, Eng 58, 59, 66
Hop Brook Quarry (Simsbury, CT) 4-6
Hop Meadow Burying Yard

(Simsbury,CT) 1
Horner, Susan and Joanna 221
Hoskins, Robert 21,22
Howells, William Dean 220
Humphrey, Amasa 22, 23, 27
Humphrey, Asenath 6, 8
Humphrey, Campbell 35
Humphrey, Dudley 35
Humphrey, Elihu 2, 3, 6
Humphrey, Hezekiah 15

246

Humphrey, Hoel 22
Humphrey, Jonathan 8, 10
Humphrey, Rowena 2
Humphreys, Hannah 25, 27
Hunt, Fanny Waugh 227-230, 228
Hunt, William Holman 227-230

"Isabella and the Pot of Basil" 229, 230

Jackson, Andrew 102
Jackson, James 100
Jackson, Samuel 190
Jewik Family 68, 70
Jiiih Fun-Jeuk 58, 64, 68
Jiuh mahn Jung si 52, 71
Jue,JackG. 67,70,70
Jue, Paul and Lum Shee 55, 55

Kaets, Richard 157

Kee, Yee Wing 57

Keneseth Israel Synagogue and Cemetery

(Louisville, KY) 116, 124, 125, 126, 134,

134-142
Kensal Green Cemetery (London,

England) 227
Kern, Daniel 132, 133
King, Bemjamin S. 93, 95
King, William F. 104
Knowles, Robert 167
Kreitman, Sam and Fannie 136, 139-140

Lady Morgan 219

Lahm mahn Leiihng si mouh 71, 72

Lam, Ting Cheuk 58

Lamson, Caleb (1697-1760) 153,162,

177-179,181-190,201,204
Lamson, Caleb (d. 1724) 189
Lamson, Caleb (d. 1757) 189
Lamson, Caleb (1760-1800+) 191-200
Lamson, David 193
Lamson, Dorothy Hancock 181
Lamson, Dorothy Mousal (wife of Joseph)

152
Lamson, Dorothy Mousal (wife of

Nathaniel) 179
Lamson, Elizabeth (d. 1707) 161
Lamson, Elizabeth (d. 1723) 188
Lamson, Elizabeth (d. 1794) 198
Lamson, Elizabeth Burch 201

Lamson, Elizabeth Mitchell (d. 1703)

152, 161
Lamson family 151-217
Lamson, Frances Webb 191
Lamson, Hannah 189
Lamson, Hannah Judson 203
Lamson, Hannah Welch 152
Lamson, John 191-192,204
Lamson, Joseph (1658-1722) 151-178, 169,

179-180, 182, 185, 188, 204
Lamson, Joseph (1728-1789) 190-192, 198,

204
Lamson, Joseph (1760-1808) 190, 191-200
Lamson, Joseph, Jr. 153, 205
Lamson, Nancy 199, 199, 200
Lamson, Nathaniel 153, 162-163, 170, 172,

177, 179-181, 183-190, 201, 204
Lamson, Sally Elliot 193
Lamson, Samuel 191-193
Lamson, Susanna Frothingham (b. 1724)

190, 199
Lamson, Susanna Frothingham (b. 1768)

192
Lamson, William (d. 1659) 151
Lamson, William (1694-1755) 153, 179,

186, 201
Lamson, William, Jr. 179, 201-203
Landau, Herman 121-122
Landor, Walter Savage 220-221,223
Lapp, Caroline 132, 133
Leighton, Frederic 236
Leong, Jim 61, 62
Leong, Lee Chung 72, 73
Leong Surname Association 77-78
Leuhng Yik-Laahn fuh-yahn mouh 58, 58, 71
Lew, Pang 59,60
Lewes, George 220
Lincoln, NE 117
Livermore, Samuel 183
Long Island, NY 203
Long, Sarah 204
Long, Zechariah 164, 165
Louisville, KY 116, 117-149
Lowe, Enoch Magruder 96-98, 98
Ludwig, Allan 165

Magoun family monument 238, 239
Maiden, MA 151-217
Mazzini, Giuseppe 223

247

McGuire, Kate M. 99,99

McKenna, John 106

Merwin, Elizabeth 202

Ming,Yee 58,62

Mitchell John 182

Morley, John 225, 227

Moses, Michael 14, 15

Mount Auburn Cemetery (Cambridge,

MA) 239
Mumford, WiUiam 159, 169, 176

Neale, Ann Johnson 92

Neale, Carrie 106

Neale, Charles and Mary 91

Neale, Charles Lloyd 90,91-115,107

Neale, Charles Washington 92, 103, 104

Neale Family monument 106, 107

Neale, Frank 92, 103, 106

Neale, James H. 108,109

Neale, Sidney Chapman 104

New Milford, CT 203

Nightingale, William Edward and Frances

219
Noble, Friend 27
Norcoss stone 200

"Old Stonecutter" 154-156, 159, 168, 171
Oliver, Mercy 179
On Leong Tong 54-56

"Palimpsest" stones 182

Parker, Theodore 232, 234

Peacock, Thomas Love 220

Perdon, Maman 232

Pettibone, Jacob 2

Pettibone, Jacob Wayne 2

Pettibone, Martha 27

Phelps, Fiorina 22

Phelps, Liberty 6

Phelps, Noble 22

Phelps, Susannah 29

Phillips Academy Cemetery (Andover,

MA) 232
Phipps Street Burial Ground

(Charlestown, MA) 154, 179, 200
Pierpont, Jonathan 162, 166, 172, 173, 179,

187
Pond Family 85
Poole, Jonathan 192

Powers, Hiram 224
Poyson, John 4
Pratt, Thomas 157,158
Prince, Eliza 29

Protestant Cemetery (Florence, Italy) 218,
219-242

Quarry Hill (Maiden, MA) 152

Rainford, John 188

Rand, Joanna 193

Randolph, Beverley 102

Reed, Mary 177,181,182

Robe, Andrew 5, 6

Rogers, John 182

Rogers, Mary 161

Ross Bay Cemetery (Victoria, British

Columbia) 230
Rous, Mary 150, 171, 179
Row, Elias 165
Ruskin, John 221
Russell, John 173

San Michele Cemetery (Venice, Italy) 225

Sewell, Thomas 1 79

Shavinsky, Simon 135, 139

Shelley, Mary 219

Shelley, Percy Bysshe 219, 220

Shepard, Electra 37

Shutt, Mary and Hannah 166, 173, 179

Simsbury, CT vi, 1-51

Simsbury Historical Society 1

Slung, Eva 138, 140

Small, Joseph 182

South Salem, NY 203

Spencer, Hannah and Caleb 31, 33

St. Andrew's Church (North Bloomfield,

CT) 15
St. Louis Cemeteries (New Orleans, LA)

225
St. Louis, MO 52-89
St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery (Alexandria,

VA) 96-97, 104, 105
St. Paul's Church (Newburyport,

MA) 186
Staglieno Cemetery (Genoa, Italy) 223
Stanbury, Jonas 6
Stratford, CT 153,201
Stoddard, John 222

248

Stone, John (d. 1683) 162
Stone, John (d. 1691) 165
Sweetland, Isaac 2, 6

Tashjian, Dickran and Ann 165
Temple Adath Israel and Adath Israel

[Temple] Cemetery (Louisville, KY)

116, 118, 119, 120, 122, 124, 126-129,

130, 145
Temple Shalom (Louisville, KY) 122, 143,

143
"The Temple" /The Temple Cemetery

(Louisville, KY) 116, 122, 126, 128, 130
Trinity Methodist Cemetery (Alexandria,

VA) 101-104
Tripp, Elizabeth and Nathan 200, 201
Trollope, Frances 220, 236, 237
Trollope, Thomas Adolphus 239
Tsou-bi Tsui-sieng Bung si mo 73, 74, 86
Tufts, Aaron 189
Tufts, Peter and Marcy 186
Tuller, Jerucia 27
Tuller, Randall 27
Turner, Prudence 182
Twain, Mark 221

Union Methodist (Methodist Protestant)
Cemetery (Alexandria, VA) 92, 95

Valhalla Cemetery (St. Louis, MO) 52-89

Villari,L. 221

Virginia Director}/ and Business Register 92

Walsh, Charles Miller 108

Wasserman, Emily 165

Webber, Richard and Lydia 182

Webster, Charles F. 94, 96

Welch, Thomas 152-153, 154, 159-161, 168,

176,177,180,204
Wesleyan Cemetery (St.Louis, MO) 53-54
Whittemore, Joseph 152, 154, 159, 168,

176,177,180,204
Wilcox, Elisha 29
Wilcox, Lucy 28, 29
Williams, Meredith M. and Gray 203
Wing, Huie 62
Wise, Rabbi Isaac Mayer 124
Wolmg Cuk-Ying 72
Woloshin monument 131, 131

Wood, Leonard 232,235

You, Wong 53

Zarchy, Rabbi Asher Lipman 139, 141

AGS JOURNALS

MARKERS I Reprint of 1980 journal. Col-
lection of 15 articles on topics such as
recording and care of gravestones,
resources for teachers, some unusual
markers, and carvers Ithamar Spauldin of
Concord, Mass. and the Connecticut
Hook-and-Eye Man.
182 pages, 100 illustrations

MARKERS II Signed stones in New Eng-
land and Atlantic coastal states; winged
skull symbol in Scotland and New Eng-
land; early symbols in religious and wider
social perspective; Mass. carvers Joseph
Barbur, Jr., Stephen and Charles
Hartshorn, and carver known as "JN";
Portage County, Wise, carvers from 1850-
1900; and a contemporary carver of San
Angelo, Tex.
226 pages, 168 illustrations

MARKERS III Gravestone styles in fron-
tier towns of Western Mass.; emblems and
epitaphs on Puritan gravestones; John
Hartshorn's carvings in Essex County,
Mass.; and New Hampshire carvers Paul
Colburn, John Ball, Josiah Coolidge
Wheat, Coolidge Wheat, and Luther Hub-
bard.
154 pages, 80 illustrations

MARKERS IV Delaware children's stones
of 1840-1899; rural southern gravemarkers;
New York and New Jersey carving tradi-
tions; cmnposantos of New Mexico; and
death Italo- American style.
180 pages, 138 illustrations

MARKERS V Pennsylvania German
gravestones; mausoleum designs of Louis
Henri Sullivan; Thomas Gold and 7 Boston
carvers of 1700-1725 who signed stones
with their initials; and Canadian grave-
stones and yards in Ontario and Kings
County, Nova Scotia.
240 pages, 158 illustrations

MARKERS VI Carver John Dwight of
Shirley, Mass.; gravestones of Afro-Ameri-
cans from New England to Georgia; socio-
logical study of Chicago-area monuments;
more on New Mexico camposantos; hand
symbolism in Southwestern Ontario; an
epitaph from ancient Turkey; and a review
essay on James Slater's The Colonial Bury-
ing Grounds of Eastern Connecticut.
245 pages, 90 illustrations

MARKERS VII A trilogy on cemetery
gates and plot enclosures; the Boston His-
toric Burying Grounds Initiative; unusual
monuments in colonial tidewater Virginia;
tree stones in Southern Indiana's Lime-
stone Belt; life and work of Virginia carver
Charles Miller Walsh; carvers of Monroe
County, Ind.; Celtic crosses; and monu-
ments of the Tsimshian Indians of Western
Canada.
281 pages, 158 illustrations

MARKERS VIII A collection of the pio-
neering studies of Dr, Ernest Caulfield on
Connecticut carvers and their work: fifteen
essays edited by James A. Slater and three
edited by Peter Benes.
342 pages, 206 illustrations

MARKERS IX A tribute to the art of Fran-
cis Duval; the Mullicken Family carvers of
Bradford, Mass.; the Green Man on Scot-
tish markers; photo-essay on the Center
Church Crypt, New Haven, Conn.; more
on Ithamar Spauldin and his shop; the
Almshouse Burial Ground, Uxbridge,
Mass.; Thomas Crawford's monument for
Amos Binney; Salt Lake City Temple sym-
bols on Mormon tombstones; language
codes in Texas German cemeteries; and the
disappearing Shaker cemetery.
281 pages, 176 illustrations

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