Historic New England: Rhode Island Cemeteries
Early tonight, at 5:30 p.m., I watched “Early Rhode Island Family Cemeteries and Their Stories”, a webinar hosted by Historic New England via Zoom. The presenter, Robert (Bob) A. Geake, is an archivist and board member Warwick Historical Society, author of eight books, and a frequent contributor to Small State, Big History, a self-proclaimed “Online Review of Rhode Island History”. As stated by Jane Hennedy, who manages Casey Farm and Watson Farm in southern Rhode Island, Geake’s next book is Death in Early New England: Rites, Rituals, and Remembrance, will come out in July. I last met Geake during Lincoln's Birthday at Arnold House in Lincoln, RI, where he is a tour guide.
Geake’s presentation utilized beautiful pictures of churches and cemeteries found in the tristate area of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Cemeteries familiar to me included The Old Cemetery circa 1774 on Hill Street in Whitinsville, MA; Ballou Cemetery in Cumberland, RI (RIHC #9); and the Casey Family Cemetery (RIHC #65) in North Kingstown, RI. He began by describing how European burial practices, such as having a vigil or wake to watch over the dead, became Americanized over time. New Englanders wrote epitaphs and used symbols such as skull & crossbones or hourglasses on early gravestones. Cemeteries often began as private land, as was the case for the Burial Ground in the churchyard of King’s Chapel in Boston, MA. Isaac Johnson was buried in his vegetable plot in 1630, followed by several others. In 1688, Royal Governor Sir Edmund Andros built the first Anglican church on the ground. Parishioners were buried on the grounds, below the church, and even underneath a family pew.
While the Puritans first marked graves with wooden crosses or slabs meant to last only a single lifetime, professional stone carvers soon made their living creating gravestones. Slate was the wood of choice, although later carvers used limestone, granite, marble, and other stones. Even with changing burial practices, Rhode Islanders continued to inter their dead on their family property as they were independent of churches or held worship in private homes.
The Casey family is a notable example of evolving tastes in a family plot. The simple headstone of Abigail Coggeshall Casey shows her Quaker roots, while her husband Silas Casey has a willow and urn motif common in the early 19th century. The headstone of Thomas Goodale Casey sports a carved wreath of oak leaves created by Russian-American sculptor Robert Eberhard Launitz, sometimes called the “Father of Monumental Art in America” who designed the stone commemorating the State of New York found inside the Washington Monument. Thomas Lincoln Casey commissioned the headstone, as he had managed the engineering of the Washington Monument, and his elegant box tomb has the same carved wreath motif. The headstone of his wife, Emma Weir Casey, is smaller but equally elegant, with a floral motif on the top. Also in the cemetery is the headstone belonging to one of their children, Harry Weir Casey, who drowned in Narragansett Bay at nineteen years old.
Geake described the distinct styles of carvers found throughout New England. George Allen, Sr., a Congregationalist from England, moved to Providence, RI in the early 18th century and created charming but bald angels. Older son, George Allen, Jr., briefly tried carving in the 1760s, while younger son Gabriel Allen was prolific, creating the distinctive “severe looking angel” and a “peeking sun” designs from the 1770s to the 1800s. The Stevens family was filled with carvers, including the simple designs of John Stevens I and the more intricate designs of his sons John Stevens II, Phillip Stevens (who was murdered at age thirty), James Stevens (who soon found another job), and William Stevens (who became the most prolific carver).
The Stevens family did not carve alone. They owned enslaved people trained in stone carving. Pompe Stevens received permission to carve a stone for his brother, Cuffe Gibbs, who died in 1768. The Rhode Island Slave History Medallions features this design, which the organization erected across the state at historic sites where enslavers kept people of African and Indigenous descent for forced labor. Sites include Casey Farm and Smith’s Castle in North Kingstown.
At the end of the fast-paced session, Greake worked with Hennedy and moderator Moriah Illsley to answer questions from the audience. They reminded cemetery-goers not to create gravestone rubbings. Instead, use a mirror to shine extra light on a gravestone before taking a picture. Resources to learn more about cemeteries include surveys from the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Association for Gravestone Studies with its magazine Markers.