New Drawings

I’m having a burst of new creative work while waiting for some stones to come in.

What if I was a gravestone carver picking up where Moses Worster left off in 1781? And what if women in the 18th century could be gravestone carvers and artists? And what if I was alive today?

The Epitaph is a few lines from a poem by Phillis Wheatley Peters. An important African American Poet from the 18th c. She was enslaved as a young girl and woman. Her life was and work were both beyond extraordinary. I wrote a song using this text last year. If you don’t already know about her you should read more here: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/wheatley-phillis-1754-1784/

Maybe the ghost are vengeful.

What is that face?

Abstraction in Central Massachusetts gravestone carving in the 18th century.

Drawing from the Gravestone of Jonathan Worster, who is the probable carver of many stones in this style.

Gravestone art from early New England still has the capacity to surprise us. The designs used are often so entirely out of sync with what we think we know about New England Puritans and their descendants. One of the things the Puritans were famous for in England was smashing up idols. So, when they got to create their new Puritan religious culture in America they would forbid religious imagery… which makes the flourishing of gravestone art, in a new and vernacular American style completely unexpected.

Detail of the gravestone of Job Hinkley in Brookfield MA.

I have included pictures of just one style of abstract “soul-effigy” face in this post which really exemplifies the abstraction I am talking about. Many of these carvings are attributed to Jonathan Worster. The skulls typical of earlier gravestones give way gradually to face motifs in the mid-late 18th century. These are generally referred to as “soul-effigies” and are often winged, some look very much like cherubs or angels which ties them into a more instantly recognizable western visual language. But images like these, with a tear-drop shaped face, two bold eyes, a vertical bar suggesting the nose, connecting down to a horizontal bar for the mouth are much more like something out of an abstract expressionist painting than what we think of as the religious artwork of old-fashioned white colonials.

It is my belief that the vernacular abstraction in these images points to a very universal human impulse to represent the human face in a simple way. It also makes art history feel more non-linear than how it is usually presented.

Christopher Osgood gravestone.

These faces resemble nothing so much as the traditional wooden masks carved in many cultures all over the world. Some of this is the nature of the material: carving is carving to some extent and can lead to similar results. But there’s probably more to it than that and I think it suggests a universality human art and self-expression that I find very compelling.

Gravestone of Dorathy Converse Brookfield MA.

Detail from the gravestone of Thomas Lovell, Ipswich Massachusetts.

Gravestone of Elizabeth Freeman

Elizabeth Freeman’s stone is frequently visited as is clear by the many visiting stones and other offerings left there.

Elizabeth Freeman (1742-1829) was born into slavery in Claverack, NY, and given as a child to the wealthy Ashley Family living in Sheffield Massachusetts in the mid 1700s. She was one of five enslaved people working in the home of Col. Ashley which still stands today and is a museum. Their website presents Elizabeth Freeman’s story as at least as important if not more important to the site than the white inhabitants. https://thetrustees.org/place/ashley-house/ I am curious to visit in non-Covid times to hear the docents’ interpretation of this material.

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Elizabeth Freeman, who was known as Bett or Betty while enslaved, observed the agitations for freedom that were breaking out in the Massachusetts colony leading up to the Revolutionary War. Col. Ashley was a great supporter of the American Revolution and his house rung with exhortations of freedom and equality, including the Sheffield Declaration which used the same language as the subsequent Massachusetts constitution:

“mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty and property”

Elizabeth attended a local reading of the Declaration of Independence and approached Theodore Sedgwick a local lawyer to take her case, along with a fellow enslaved man known as Brom. The case was heard in the Great Barrington County Court in August 1781 and Sedgewick argued that the language of the constitution effectively abolished slavery in the state. “Bett and Brom” won their case and were granted their freedom. This ruling did not lead to the immediate emancipation of all slaves in Massachusetts (as I was taught in my youth.) But, of course, it was more complicated. The 1790 census in Massachusetts recorded no slaves, but it is believed that slave-owners were discouraged from mentioning slaves on the census. Glenn Knoblock writes: “While it is commonly and erroneously thought that the Walker and Mum Bett cases effectively ended slavery in Massachusetts (slaves were held in the state even after 1800), they were very important precedents in that slave owner’s claims could no longer be effectively argued or upheld in a court of law in Massachusetts.” -African American Historic Burial Grounds and Gravesites of New England G. Knoblock. After she gained her freedom Elizabeth took the name “Elizabeth Freeman” and went to work for the Sedgwick family, she also worked as a midwife delivering many local children in Stockbridge MA. Her gravestone is in Sedgewick's family plot in the cemetery in Stockbridge MA and was probably written and purchased by Catharine Sedgewick whom she helped raise and who recorded most of the known stories about Elizabeth’s life.

There are many many books about the life of Elizabeth “Mum Bett” Freeman. Many of them written for children and most written by white authors and historians. Elizabeth was clearly seen as heroic and was admired enough by the Sedgwicks to give her a space in their family plot where she is the only burial of a non-family member amongst many many graves. Most of the stories we know of Elizabeth Freeman are derived from the accounts of Catherine Sedgwick the daughter of Theodore Sedgwick. You can view the manuscript of Sedwick’s article here at the Massachusetts Historical Society and helpfully, there is a transcription of the text. The most often recounted story from Elizabeth’s time as a slave was when she demonstrated great physical bravery and a fierce sense of justice when wounded by her mistress who attempted to strike a fellow slave
(perhaps Elizabeth’s sister) with a red hot shovel protecting. Elizabeth interposed between them and took a deep wound on her arm which she always kept uncovered to be a mark of shame to her mistress. There are two other interesting vignettes exemplifying her bravery and strength of character: in one Elizabeth protects a teenager who has “girl trouble” from her mistress in order that the girl could petition Judge Ashley for help. This help resulted eventually in the capital conviction of the girl’s father, so it was some grave trouble. The other story involves her standing up to a mob of angry white men in Shay’s rebellion who came looking to assault Theodore Sedgwick and loot his home. Though the details of Elizabeth Freeman’s life were all recorded by whites they yield such a heroic portrait it is hard not to be moved by it. Almost nothing is known of the free life of Brom.

My Favorite Gravestone...

Tympanum of Elijah Bordwell gravestone in Montague, MA.

I know I’m not supposed to pick my favorite. The carving on this stone is beautiful and strange and quirky and all the things I like. The clock is wonderful and a great gravestone symbol. The little details of the crossed bones and grave-diggers tools are just a little creepy in that Early New England sort of way. But really it’s the text of this stone that makes it my favorite. I think I can still almost quote it from memory.

I’ll transcribe the text because it’s not easy to make out unless the sunlight catches the lettering at exactly the correct angle.

“In Memory of Mr Elijah Bordwell
who died January 26th 1786 in ye 27th
Year of his Age, having but a few days
surviv’d ye fatal Night when he was
flung from his Horse & drawn by ye stirrup
16 rods along ye path as appear’d by ye place
where his hat was found, & where he had
Spent ye whole following severe cold night
treading ye Snow in a Small Circle. the
Family he left was an aged Father a Wife
and 3 Small Children.

On this Side Death Man’s Dangers never cease.
Beyond, ye Virtuous Share eternal Peace. ”

Historic Gravestone Portraits

Drawing Historic Gravestone Portraits

This is from the gravestone of Patience Watson located in Plymouth, Mass.

I have always been in love with portrait-style gravestones. I find the inclusion of specific types of clothing or hat, or hairstyle really draws me in and gets me thinking about who the person was in a different way than the basic gravestone statistics. The drawings on this page are all from photos in Alan Ludwig’s classic gravestone tome Graven Images.

From the gravestone of Rev. Grindall Rawson in Mendon MA.

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This is drawing of the Peter Bancroft stone is based on a photo from the Farber Gravestone Collection which is the most immense and valuable online collection of images and searchable content about Early American gravestones ever. If you like historic gravestones I have just found your new favorite website.

From the gravestone of Peter Bancroft in Auburn, MA.

“I like that when my kids say: “Hey that kinda looks like Thomas Jefferson.” I’m pretty sure they mean Daveed Diggs, not the two-dollar bill guy. ”

From the gravestone of Gordon Courtmanche. New Haven, CT.

I have gotten to carve one portrait-style gravestone. I feel really thrilled to have been given that opportunity. I think there’s just something about this that makes me wish I had known him. It draws me in, in a personal, relatable way. Or at least that’s what I was trying to do.

Going through doors...

From the gravestone of Thomas Allen located in Lancaster MA. This drawing is from my sketchbook looking at a photo from the Farber Gravestone collection online.

I have been drawing a lot more lately. Looking at photos of old gravestones and playing with the forms trying to learn from them. I have always loved the concept of these figures in doorways… passing from one place to another.

“I hear a small sound, and one more time
I put the patient key in the lock.
The door trembles as it opens:”

— Paul Engle "Door"