Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Enfield Street Cemetery, Enfield, CT

Enfield Street Cemetery had by far the best view of any of the cemeteries I visited this week. Set against green trees and blue hills, it's a rural cemetery that includes several 18th-century sandstones, many 19th-century marble tablets and obelisks, and modern stones. Obelisks have quite a different feel when they're arranged in clusters, like a marble forest, as opposed to in the St. George's/St. Mark's Cemetery, where they stand isolated, like lighthouses in a sea of shorter stones.


The first thing to catch my eye in this cemetery was the huge sandstone orbs positioned on top of these gravestones. There is one other set of such orbs in the cemetery, but it's only a pair. As you can see, it looks as though this stone began as a pair - Ephraim Pease and his wife Tabitha - but was transformed into a trio with the addition of second wife Rebekah. I have never seen orbs like this before, but they seem appropriate, given that orbs are widely used to symbolize eternity. Small stone orbs (about the size to fit in the palm of your hand) known as "petrospheres" have been found in Neolithic sites in Britain and Ireland. 


The color and shadows in these photos aren't the best, but I had to make do with a somewhat overcast sky and stones that were lit mostly from behind. A few times I was able to take advantage of other conference attendees who had brought a mirror with them to cast light on the stones; you can see the results below.


The weird insect-winged, sawtooth-chinned cherub on the right in the first picture was duplicated in other stones in this cemetery, as well as in the next one we visited. I was surprised by the material of this stone and the one next to it, which I hadn't seen before; it's a type of stone called schist, which contains tiny grains of micha that sparkle in the sun. I also like the epitaph on the second stone: "The State of Mortals here behold: For young must die as well as old ..." Thanks, people definitely wouldn't have known that in the 18th century.

Above, a sandstone marker with an hourglass and another schist marker with a cherub. The sawtooth edge on the chin of the cherub is thought to be a vestige of the teeth of the death's head, from which the cherub evolved (according to Allan Ludwig, author of Graven Images: New England Stonecarving and its Symbols, i.e. one of the best books ever written). The marker on the left would fit in perfectly with the stones at Longmeadow Cemetery.

These stones are oriented differently from the others, perhaps because they're from the 1750s. In the St. George's/St. Mark's Cemetery, the oldest stones are oriented westward, while the newer ones point eastward.

This stone has a shell-like tympanum, perhaps a symbol of baptism, or perhaps showing the influence of Rococo style (a.k.a. "Rocks and shells") - or both. The inscription is unusually descriptive: "The Aged Mr. Samuel Pease, Haveing faithfully served God, & his Generation to the Universal love & Acceptance of all Who Knew him, departed this life in hope of a better one ye 8 of Sep. 1770 in His 84th Year." Fun fact: there are eight separate Samuel Peases recorded in this cemetery on Find A Grave.

Another great hourglass, and notice that in this one you can see that the sand has run out. This is a very different image of a life ending than that evoked by the scythe cutting through a flower, and for good reason: while the former symbol was used mostly for young people (the life cut short) the latter was generally reserved for those who had lived a full life.

I'm sorry that I don't have a better image of this stone, as it features one of my favorite motifs: a likeness that looks much more like a portrait than a soul effigy.



Lastly, from a much later period, is this massive zinc obelisk, dating to 1883. Believe it or not, this stone is so massive that its base is buckling under its own weight (though you can't really see it in this photograph).

5 comments:

  1. 'Oh look. Stone balls. What shall we call them?'

    'Stone balls?'

    'Nah, too prosaic.'

    'How about "petrospheres?"'

    'That's better. Much more arcane.'

    'And it's only one word instead of two.'

    'Correct.'

    'But it has three syllables and twelve letters instead of two syllables and ten letters.'

    'All to the good. Makes it cleverer.'

    There's a certain lightness and even a little lyricism about this post. And there's a facetious observation to set the tone. Nice one. Good idea about the mirror, although a reflector screen would have been better - more diffuse.

    And didn't I learn a lot about scythes and egg timers? And the fact that early graves were aligned facing west. That particularly interested me. As far as I've observed, headstones in English churches have always faced east so that the body can sit up and face the risen Christ on Judgement Day.

    Now I'm wondering whether English headstones ever have cherubs on them. Can't remember having seen one. If that's the case, why did the colonials make such ubiquitous use of them?

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  2. I hope my last comment didn't offend, Maddie. It would be easy to misconstrue. It's always been a problem that I say things carelessly when in frivolous mood. Certainly no offence was intended.

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  3. No offense taken at all! Believe me, if I am offended I will say so, whereas if I say nothing, I am more than likely being lazy in my internet obligations. I'm currently involved in several ongoing projects at once, which is not an excuse, but that's where I've been, not in a corner quietly stewing over something you wrote.

    I think you got the petrosphere conversation spot-on. Oh and we did also have a reflector screen, but I wasn't sure what it was called. It was gold colored so the photos in which there is a gold tint to the stone, that was likely from the screen.

    GraveSTONES were aligned facing west, but the bodies themselves faced east. Over time the gravestones came to face the same way as the body.

    The New England gravestone carving tradition is largely original to the colonies, according to James Deetz (aka the grandfather of gravestone studies) and a PhD candidate (from Britain no less) who read a paper at the conference. However elements did cross the pond, and I'm pretty sure there are cherub heads in Britain, although they look very different. Deetz attributed the transformation of the death's head to the cherub to the Great Awakening, which of course took place across several continents; the cherubs produced in New England were a local interpretation of the new focus on individualism and spirituality.

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  4. Thanks for not sitting in a corner and quietly stewing (which wasn't quite what I imagined - you don't seem the type) and for the further elucidation. Two thoughts:

    1. That means the poor old early folks would have had their view of Jesus obscured by a bloody great piece of stone. Bit like being in the back row of the stalls in a theatre, stuck behind a woman in a big hat.

    2. There's definitely nobody in Britain called Deetz. We're all Smiths and Shufflebottoms over here.

    Nevertheless, the next time I go to our local (14th century) churchyard, I'll certainly look out for alternative cherubs.

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  5. This is wonderful! Commentary!

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