Last week, I finished up my series on Portland, Maine’s Eastern Cemetery. That one was hard to say goodbye to!

The next day we traveled up to Bath to visit the Maine Maritime Museum, then moved on to the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. I love lighthouses of all shapes and sizes, and this one is top notch because you can actually go up into it. Not all of them are in such good shape or have full public access. My husband, son and I also spent a good bit of time climbing all over the rocks above the crashing waves.

However, I knew I had a good chance of stopping by another cemetery on our way back up the Pemaquid peninsula. I persuaded my husband to drive over to Colonial Pemaquid so  I could get a good look at the Old Burying Ground (that’s what they call it). We were hopeful we could find a place to grab dinner afterward.

Located in New Harbor near Bristol, the Colonial Pemaquid State Historic Site includes the reconstructed Fort William Henry, along with archaeological remains of 17th- and 18th-century village buildings and fortifications. Pemaquid was a colonial settlement dating to the early decades of the 17th century, with a succession of conflicts leading the site to be attacked on several occasions and entirely abandoned twice. The area was used by English and French traders and fishermen on a seasonal basis for some time, and the first documented permanent residence was established in 1628.

Colonial Pemaquid has a museum with artifacts found on the site including musket balls, coins, and pottery. But it was closed by the time we got there. My husband and son were eager to explore Pemaquid Beach next door and we spotted a seafood restaurant where we could dine later. I headed over to the Old Burying Ground.

With a view of Pemaquid Beach, the Old Burying Ground is a lovely place to explore. At the time we were there, the grass had been cut in some areas but not in others so getting great pictures of some of the markers wasn’t easy. But it was still amazing. As it often does, being in such an old cemetery makes me feel like I’m going back to another time and place.

A very helpful sign explained that while the oldest dated cemetery marker comes from 1734, stones from as far back as 1652 have been found in earlier times. Unmarked field stones are plentiful. There’s also a mention of Indian attacks in the village during the 1600s that required mass burials. Currently, there are 200 names recorded of people buried at the Old Burial Ground but there are many, many more that remain anonymous.

The Old Burying Ground has a variety of marker styles represented, from skulls to willow-shaded urns to modern recent ones. The familiar flying skull is on the slate marker of Ann Rodgers, who died at the age of 41. She even has her name on the back, too.

By looking on Ann’s Find a Grave memorial, I found the full inscription:

Here lies buried ye body of
Mrs Ann Rodgers
the wife of Lieut
Patrick Rodgers
Died July 1st 1958
in the 41st year
of her age

There was also a winged face marker (called a “soul effigy”) represented by the stone of Margaret Fletcher, who was married to a sea captain.

Here lies buried
the body of Mrs
Margaret Fletcher
wife to Capt
Thomas Fletcher
died May 15 1767
Aged 43 years

The sign also noted that like Eastern Cemetery, the Old Burying Ground includes stones from a reputable stonecutter. His name was Joseph Sikes, and he came from a family of stone cutters. Because his work is so similar to that of his son Elijah’s, it is often hard to tell who did what stone. Sometimes Elijah marked his stones with an “E.S.” at the bottom.

While not born in Maine, Joseph probably moved from Massachusetts to the coast of Maine. His work spanned the 1770s to about 1800. It can be found in cemeteries in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine.

The Sikes style is almost folk art-esque, giving it a primitive charm. They favored oval-shaped heads, semi-circle eyes, flowers, grapes, vines, moons, hearts, and the words “momento mori” (Latin for “remember death”).

The marker for Morgan McCaffrey is not in good condition due to the poor quality of the stone. The elements have also taken their toll. Fortunately, I was able to find out a little about him.

According to his Find a Grave memorial, Morgan was married to Anna Little, the daughter of James Little. Her father was killed by Indians at Fort Frederick on Sept. 2, 1747, according to the Massachusetts Archives.

James Little was granted land in 1736 from Great Britain under the Waldo Patent. This was a document granting title to 36 square miles of land in Maine. It’s named after businessman Samuel Waldo, who eventually gained control of the patent. It was previously known as the Muscongus Patent because one of the boundaries was a river by that name.

After James’ death, Anna and her sister Sarah (along with their husbands) inherited and sold this land. Morgan died in 1768 at the age of 35. His daughter, Jennie, is said to have written his epitaph. Jennie had also been recently devastated by the loss of a brother, who drowned in a well near their home.

Behold my dad is gone,
And leaves me here to mourn;
But hope in Christ I have,
That he and I will save.

Thomas and Esther Holden share a marker done by Joseph or Elijah, the long oval faces at the top being a trademark. Had it not been for Find a Grave and a book, I wouldn’t have known their names because the stone is in very poor condition and spotted with lichen.

Fortunately, you can still see the faces and the words “momento mori” at the top. It looks like Thomas’ face may feature a mustache. You can also faintly see what looks like two hearts merged into one below the faces.

Their inscription reads:

Behold we are confined to dust,
And here we must remain,
Till Jesus who redeemed us
Bids us rise again.

Thomas died at the age of 75 on May 19, 1784 while Elizabeth died at the age of 64 on Feb. 6, 1785.

It’s believed that Joseph Sikes died sometime around 1801. While he spent his life in the Maine/Massachusetts area, Elijah moved to Vermont then went west. He’s buried with his wife, Lucretia, in Brookfield, Ohio. His own marker is quite plain compared to those he carved.

I’ll be back soon with more stories from the Old Burying Ground at Pemaquid. In the meantime, with Christmas only a few days away, I hope you have a happy holiday season!

Having spent the last two weeks focusing mostly on stone cutter Bartlett Adams, I’ll wrap up my series on Eastern Cemetery by looking at some of the other markers and their different styles.

Mary Green’s head and foot stone mark the oldest known burial at Eastern Cemetery of May 23, 1717. The inscription says, “Daughter of Cap Nathaniel and Mrs. Mary Green of Boston Aged 54 years.” Records indicate she was born on May 3, 1663 and never married.

I’ve featured pictures of winged skull markers that I’ve taken in Charleston, but it’s worth revisiting the subject since this was the style those stone cutters were trying to emulate. Why such a gruesome symbol? It all has to do with the time period in which they were made. Most were made in the 17th century and into the 18th at the behest of the Puritans that lived in New England.

The Puritans did not like putting religious symbols on grave markers, such as crosses, angels or Christ figures. You never saw them in their meetinghouses either. They were very  much against attributing human form to spiritual beings. So why the winged skull?

Considering the average lifespan at this time could be quite brief, being conscious of life’s fragile nature was paramount. The Puritans thought you needed to make the most of your time on earth to ensure where you wound up after you died. This carried over into reminding the loved ones that you left behind when they came to visit your grave. That winged skull would remind them that living a good life would result in ending up in Heaven after they died or in agony in hell if they didn’t.

Sarah Brown Milk and Anne Dunn Deering Milk’s markers are another example of the winged skull motif. They were both the wife of James Milk.

Anne (then Dunn) first married John Deering, a ship master. Like his father, Deering commanded the vessels of his cousin, Sir William Pepperell. Deering died at sea in 1758. They had two sons who lived to adulthood.

A native of Boston, James Milk is called “Deacon James Milk” on his marker. He married Sarah Brown before 1738. She died in 1761 after they had at least three children. He then married the widow Anne Deering, who died in 1769. James died a few years later in 1772.

Sometimes just a skull and bones (sans wings) were enough. When I posted the picture of gravemarkers of two children on the blog’s Facebook page, I got some shocked reactions. It’s even more dramatic in person.

Why put a skull and crossbones (more associated with pirates) on a child’s grave? I can only surmise that this was a favorite motif of the stone cutter doing the markers in Portland at this time. Bartlett Adams didn’t arrive until 1800 and he didn’t usually do carvings like this.

I’ve read that Spanish cemeteries once had the skull and crossbones at the entrance to indicate it was a place of death. Others have mentioned the Knights Templar but that doesn’t fit in this case, in my opinion. Perhaps it’s reflective of the illness that visited the Dow family since the two children died so close together.

In the case of Jonathan Dow, the motif is a skull with teeth biting into crossed bones. He died at the age of 11 on Christmas eve of 1773, the youngest son of Jabez and Dorothy Woods Dow.

Sadly, Jonathan’s younger sister, Mercy, died about a month earlier at the age of two. Her marker also featured the skull and bones. She is listed as the youngest daughter of Jabez and Dorothy.

The winged skull eventually gave way to the winged cherub or “soul effigy”, which sometimes involved the face of the deceased with wings on either side. This indicates the movement toward more acceptance of using a human likeness on a gravestone, although the winged skull remained popular. Bartlett Adams was fond of carving these winged cherubs.

Two very good examples of these are the markers of Stephen and Tabitha Bragdon Longfellow. That last name might ring a bell. They were the great-great-grandparents of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who wrote such poems as “Paul Revere’s Ride” and “Evangeline.”

Stephen and Tabitha are thought to have lived their entire lives in Gorham, Maine, about 15 miles west of Portland. Stephen was quite active in local government as town clerk, clerk of the Proprietors of Common Lands, clerk of the Judicial Court, and Register of Probate for Cumberland County.

Their grandson, Stephen, was elected to represent Maine as At-Large in the U.S. State House of Representatives from 1823 to 1825. He also served as a member of the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1814, and a member of the Maine State House of Representatives in 1826. Stephen’s second son was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who was born in Portland in 1807.

Sometimes there was no decoration at all on markers. This stone for three sons (William, Daniel and Smith) of Daniel and Nabby tells a story that needed no further illustration. They died between 1805 and 1815, five years apart. All of them were in their early 20s and appeared to have died at sea.

Far from their native land,
They perished in the drowning deep
Without a friend to stretch the hand
And none their early fate to weep.

I could find out nothing about the circumstances surrounding their deaths, but it’s likely that only William’s body is buried at Eastern Cemetery. If Daniel died “at St. Bartholomew’s” and Smith was “lost at sea”, their bodies were probably never recovered. Such events were quite common in seaside towns like Portland.

I cannot end my visit to Eastern Cemetery without mentioning a brand new marker that sits near the back wall. It belongs to William “Billy” Brown, whose story is quite different than most of the people buried there.

A small portion of Eastern Cemetery was used for slave burials, and most are unmarked. Only in February 2017 was the stone for Billy Brown created and installed, and it took much effort to make that happen. In 2013, local historians Larry Glatz and Herb Adams found out about Billy and worked to make things right. The full story can be found in this Bangor Daily News article.

Thought to have been born in Baltimore in 1786, Billy joined the Navy in childhood. Such a thing was not unusual at the time. Billy may have started life as a slave, but that’s not certain. He held the job of “powder boy” on the U.S.S. Constellation during the little-known “Quasi War” with France from 1798-1800. Powder boys hefted buckets of gunpowder from the magazine to the cannons, deadly work for a child.

Billy was injured when a musket ball hit his left foot near the ankle joint, which never healed properly. Billy served for about another 15 months and survived at least one other battle with the French in February 1800 when more than a dozen of his shipmates died.

Billy married Matilda C. March in Portland on May 31, 1829. They lived near the Abyssinian Meetinghouse, considered the center of African-American life in Portland. Billy worked for some years as a sea cook and when ashore, he drove cargo around town in a wagon. But his old injury made it hard to work and he sometimes had to ask for help from friends to get by.

Between 1844 and 1854, Brown petitioned the government five times for a pension. He enlisted the help of pension agent Freeman Bradford. In those days, no federal Department of Veterans Affairs existed so each veteran’s pension was handed out by separate acts of Congress.

Finally, on Aug. 1, 1854, Congress passed An Act for the Relief of William Brown. The act gave Billy $96 a year, retroactive to when he’d first applied a decade earlier. Sadly, he had died in May of that year and was buried in a pauper’s grave in Eastern Cemetery. But his wife and their family were able to benefit from his pension.

When Glatz and Adams took up the cause to get Billy a proper marker, they faced as many roadblocks as Billy had when he sought his pension. But thanks to their perseverance, Billy’s grave is now properly marked (although the conflict in which he fought was left off by the government engraver) and people can stop to honor him when they visit Eastern Cemetery.

There are many stories still left to share from Eastern but that would take up more space and time than this blog allows. I hated having to say goodbye to head to our hotel before we attended a Portland Seadogs game that evening, but I knew I’d been blessed to even have an hour there to see and learn what I did.

 

Last week, I introduced you to stonemason Bartlett Adams, who operated a shop in Portland, Maine for nearly 30 years. Much of his work can still be seen today at Portland’s Eastern Cemetery.

Among Adams’ signature accents was a simple rosette. You can see an example of this on the top of the marker for Margaret Newman, who died at the age of three in 1801.

As I noted earlier, Adams was also quite partial to urns. The markers for Benjamin and Sarah Larrabee are prime examples. The husband and wife died about 10 years apart but their markers are almost exactly the same, with a sweeping weeping willow frond hanging over an urn.

Born in 1734 in Falmouth, Mass. (which later became Portland, Maine), Benjamin married Sarah Weeks Brackett in 1763. He died in 1809 at the age of 75. Sarah died about 10 years later in 1819 at the age of 85 and is listed as Benjamin’s “relict” (another word for “widow”) on her marker.

On other occasions, he carved an urn by itself. Ann Hale’s marker is just one example. Beneath her name and death date are the Latin words “Hine lachrymis!” which means “Hence these tears. ” I didn’t find out until after my visit what exactly the inscription at the bottom said:

From death’s arrest could virtue save,
Or Love obtain a wish’d reprieve,
Thou, Anne, has’t scap’d a youthful grave
Nor had Heaven so soon to grieve.

Sometimes Adams combined several elements at the same time. He did this on the marker for Brigadier General Francis Osgood, who served in the Maine Militia during the War of 1812.

Adams goes to great lengths for this marker, including a portrait of the General supported by angel’s wings as part of an urn. Flowering vines climb up the sides. At the bottom, you can read three lines of the inscription before the rest is swallowed up by the ground.

O, ever honor’d, ever dear Adieu,
How many tender names are lost in you,
Keep safe, O Tomb, thy precious trust.

Adams had an affection for certain images and the rising (or setting sun) was one you can find on two markers at Eastern. The motif can mean both the beginning and end of life, or the journey to Heaven. The marker for Lucy Pierce, wife of Eli Pierce, is probably the best example.

If you look closely at the horizon of the sunburst, it almost looks as if the sun is peeking over the edge. At the bottom of the marker is an inscription that was quite popular at the time.

Remember me as you pass by
For as you are so once was I
And as I am so you must be.

Adams married Charlotte Neal in 1803. They had seven children but six of them would predecease their parents. He only lived to see one of his daughters marry and bear him a grandchild. This daughter died shortly after.

Three of Bartlett and Charlotte’s children have markers at Eastern.  The most elaborate is the one he made for his firstborn son who was named after him, Bartlett Adams Jr. He was born in 1806 and lived about five months.

From what I’ve read, the image at the top of the marker is meant to reflect Adams’ interpretation of his family crest. It’s quite intricately carved with two spheres separated by a diagonal band with three birds on it. I have to wonder if he was also referring to the idea of little Bartlett’s spirit flying from one world to the next.

At the bottom of the marker is an inscription that seems to echo with the pain of a parent’s anguish.

Betwixt his birth & death, “HOW SHORT THE SPACE?”

Beyond working hard in his shop, Adams (according to Ron Romano) made a monetary pledge for construction of the First Parish Church in 1825. He also invested in the Portland Observatory and had a place on the board of the Charitable Mechanics Association. Clearly, he was involved in his community.

You might think that a man of Adams’ talents would have a grand monument of his own, but sadly he does not. He died in 1828 when he was 51. He and Charlotte are buried in an underground tomb. I am using Ron’s picture from Find a Grave because mine wasn’t as good. The original ledger stone that marked the top of the tomb is gone. The stone in the foreground marks the tomb’s entrance.

In Romano’s research on Adams, he discovered an estimated 1,800 markers made in the stonecutter’s shop in cemeteries throughout Maine in Gray, Harpswell and Buxton. He even found a number of them in a Nova Scotia cemetery.

In a Bangor Daily News article, Romano said it took two or three days to cut an average stone. Adams had two or three men working for him once he got established, and he was in business in Portland for nearly 30 years. That leaves thousands more stones to discover, Romano thinks.

“I know there’s way more out there that I haven’t seen yet,” he said.

Next week, I’ll finish my series on Eastern Cemetery by examining some other markers that feature the flying skulls and crossbones made popular during the Puritan era.

Planning our family vacations is a challenge I relish. When we decided on Maine for the summer of 2017, I knew we’d be visiting a cemetery hopper’s paradise.

Maine is not new territory to me. This would be my fifth adventure to the Pine Tree State. But one trip just isn’t sufficient, there’s too much to see and savor. My fellas were eager to see Acadia National Park, a place I’d only spent one day in. Most of my time has been spent on the Southern coast towns of Ogunquit, Kennebunkport, and Old Orchard Beach.

I wasn’t a taphophile when I last visited Maine in 2002, so I got to work on a list of cemeteries I wanted to see along the way. One that was at the top of the list was Portland’s Eastern Cemetery.

Established in 1668, Eastern Cemetery is the oldest historic landscape in the city and is home to around 4,000 burials. Most cemeteries I visit that people would consider “very old” in the South are from the late 1700s, so I was very excited.

I got in touch with Ron Romano, who helped start the group Spirits Alive in 2006 to better care for and raise awareness of Eastern Cemetery. Since he’d be attending a meeting of the Association for Gravestone Studies in Alabama during the time we planned to visit Portland, he put me in the capable hands of Vana Carmona. This was one cemetery I didn’t want to wander alone without some guidance.

I met up with Vana after we landed in Portland and had grabbed lunch. She’s an incredibly upbeat person who gets just as excited about old cemeteries as I do. That’s always a plus.

It doesn’t take long to notice that the grave markers have much in common with the ones I’ve seen in Boston and Charleston. Winged skulls and angels from the 1700s are frequent motifs along with urns and floral themes into the early 1800s.

One of the awesome things about Eastern Cemetery is that we know the identity of the stone cutter who carved many of the markers there: Bartlett Adams. You can read about him in Ron’s book, Early Gravestones in Southern Maine: The Genius of Bartlett Adams. If you visit the Spirits Alive website, you can find a spreadsheet Ron created that lists exactly which markers Adams carved (very helpful to me as I wrote this).

Born in 1776 in Massachusetts, Bartlett Adams learned his trade as a teenage apprentice for his brother-in-law. In 1800, at age 24, he came to Portland and advertised his skills in the local newspaper. He mentioned he had a “flock of Italian marble and Quincy slate stone” in his possession.

Adams owned the only stonecutting shop in the Portland area from 1800 to 1828. His shop also made hearthstones, mantel pieces, and other finished stones. At least eight other stonecutters worked with him, including his brother Richard, two nephews, and others who would eventually enjoy their own success. About 700 of Eastern’s markers, although they are unsigned and unmarked, were carved by Adams or the men who worked in his shop.

Among Adams’ works at Eastview is a double marker for Polly and Eunice Moody, infant daughters of mechanic William and Mary “Molly” Young Moody. You can see the umbrella-like design he carved on top of it, almost sheltering the little girls below. I’ve not seen this motif anywhere else.

Adams also created a single umbrella-style grave marker for William and Molly’s daughter, Harriet. She died in 1799, only nine months old. Harriet is buried beside her mother.

Molly died at the age of 41 in August 1799, a few months before Harriet would pass away. Notice Adams’ intricate carving of the urn above the inscription on her marker and the twining vines. The urn is thought to  testify to the death of the body and the dust into which the dead body will return, while the spirit of the departed eternally rests with God.

But Adams would save his most skillful Moody marker carving for father William, who died in 1821 at the age of 65. Records indicate he served in the Revolutionary War. If his marker is to be believed, he died on his birthday.

There’s quite a few elements on William’s markers to catch the eye. Like Molly’s, his has an urn but Willilam’s sits atop a brick base and beams radiate out from it. Intricate carving edges the sides, with two pillars on either side of the inscription. Adams put quite a bit of work into it.

Next week, I’ll share more of Bartlett Adams’ work and how his markers can be found in other New England cemeteries.