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Farmington's Heritage
'Memento Mori'
Cemetery
By Lisa Johnson
and Charles Leach, M.D.
"Memento Mori"
cemetery.
Photo by Charles Leach, M.D.
We call it “Memento Mori,”
that tree-shaded hill
of grave markers visible behind a dark picket fence and Egyptian
Revival gate with its papyrus columns. Thousands pass it daily in
their cars. Of these, very few know the story of Farmington’s ancient
graveyard.
“Memento Mori” says the gate – a short imperative
sentence traceable to Roman times. Though the gate was erected in
the 1840s (in imitation of New Haven’s Grove Street Cemetery gate),
the message comes straight from our Puritan forebears: “Remember
that you die." (Latin scholar Rose Greenwald explains that both
words are “deponent verbs”, which explains the seemingly odd construction).
Today, Memento Mori is a property of the Farmington
Village Green and Library Association, a nonprofit organization
that is also responsible for the Farmington Library, Stanley-Whitman
House and Village Green. The association, through the management of Stanley-Whitman
House, protects, documents and maintains the cemetery and actively
restores deteriorated markers. This work is important, since the
yard is such a powerful link to the history of our town.
Memento Mori grew by stages. In 1661 and 1689 Thomas
Barnes, an original proprietor, donated land just north of his house to create the first known public cemetery.
(Earlier burials
may have taken place on the site of a Native American graveyard
now occupied by Riverside Cemetery.) Barnes’ gift became roughly
the center of what we know as the Old Burying Ground today. In 1692
his eldest son, Joseph, sold an additional plot of land to the town
before moving to the Southington section of Farmington. This allowed
the town to enlarge the cemetery toward the street. The eastern
half acre in the rear was sold to the Ecclesiastical Society in
1797 by Coral Case. The yard now contains 1.6 acres.
In the early twentieth century, the town quit claimed
any right it might have to Memento Mori to the Village Green and
Library, with the proviso
that ownership would revert to the town should the association cease to exist.
The estate of Henry Martin Cowles donated $1000 for the care of
the cemetery; this was followed by a contribution from D. Newton
Barney that established an endowment for its maintenance and preservation.
Memento Mori gravestone.
Photo by Brooke Martin
Though we have cared tenderly for Memento Mori in
recent years, things were not always so. For much of its
three and a half centuries, it was unfenced and raggedly mown, and the dead
were interred
in some disorder. Sheep sometimes grazed in its long grass. As the
souls of Farmington’s dead “winged their way to the mansions of
light,” their earthly remains were considered cast-off husks and
buried with little ceremony in the town’s “bone yard.” The stones
marking their graves served to remind the stern, puritanical Yankees
of early Farmington that life was short, death imminent and judgment
inevitable – and that they had better behave and be fully prepared.
In their rigid denial of symbols and customs thought
to derive from the “errant” Church of England, Puritan settlers
adopted a stark way of death. The cemetery was often established
at a distance from the Meeting House, creating a geography reflected
to this day in Farmington and other old towns. The land was a town
property – not the “Holy Ground” of the “Papists” and Anglicans
– and burial in holy ground was not considered essential to the
deceased’s success in the afterlife. Yards were generally not fenced
--
another rejection of custom. The congregation’s pastor did not come
to a 17th-century graveside, and any funeral sermon was briefly
included in the next regular service. There were no crosses or other
iconography: These suggested Catholic traditions; the memory of
England’s “Bloody Mary” and 16th-century Protestant martyrs
was too fresh.
Markers were rarely used. Fewer than one hundred 17th-century
gravestones remain in all of New England, in part because they
have disappeared but largely because most graves were unmarked or
designated by wooden markers that have disintegrated. Many of the
dead were buried in small family graveyards. None of these remain
in Farmington, although a few “orphan gravestones” have recently
been discovered on Mountain Spring Road at Route 4, and removed for
safety to the Farmington Historical Society’s Main Street cottage.
These Hawley, Gridley and Lewis stones probably are the remnants
of an old family plot, now lost.
In Memento Mori the oldest marker
dates from 1685. There are only five 17th-century century stones
-- primitive or simply worded matter-of-fact notes that a neighbor
had gone to rest. Life was simple and harsh, death was a frequent
visitor and the hardscrabble Yankees simply weren't interested
in elegant
or sentimental memorials.
Of the 860 stones in Memento Mori, 62 bear dates
from 1700 to 1749; 254 from 1750 to 1799; 590 from 1800 to 1849;
45 from 1850 to 1899 and one after 1900. The totals are not proportionate
to the town’s population at these times: approximately 750 in 1700;
6069 in 1774 (still including all of the seven “daughter towns”
that later separated); 3042 in 1820 (still including Avon
and Plainville); 3144 in 1860; 3305 in 1900. There are
several reasons for the discrepancy. As noted, home burials were
frequent and markers uncommon until the mid-1700’s. Some markers
were cut from poor quality brownstone and have disintegrated. Perhaps
a few have been removed, though vandalism has not occurred within
recent memory.
One hundred and fourteen markers bear the Cowles name.
There are 55 Wadsworths, 43 Lewises, 43 Porters and 39 Woodruffs.
Thirty-one names of original proprietors are represented, but 16
of them are not. Other frequent names are: Bidwell, Curtis, Deming,
Hills, Norton, Strong, Thompson, Whitman and Whittlesly (10 or more
each). A large number of names occur only once or twice. One wonders
where those many others are buried -- some of whom one would expect
to encounter here.
Memento
Mori gate.
Photo by Brooke Martin
One must suspect that the gross increase in recorded
interments from 1750 through 1849 resulted from the great epidemics
that swept the colonies and young Republic in those years. These
were in great part due to the stress of war, increased ease of
travel and the movements of armies across the land. A massive
spotted fever (meningoccal meningitis/septicemia) epidemic devastated New England
from 1806 through 1815, and Noah Porter buried many parishioners.
Tuberculosis was endemic in Farmington, infecting entire families;
it killed many and left others weakened for life. Close living,
poor sanitation and primitive health care contributed. Hordes of
children died in the spring epidemics. Smallpox persisted despite
vaccination, cholera and typhoid were recurrent and influenza swept
the town at intervals. Curiously, smallpox and spotted fever are
mentioned only once or twice on Memento Mori inscriptions, and tuberculosis
not at all.
Several styles are found among
the gravestones of Memento Mori, reflecting the evolving fashions
of the times. In general, styles were less refined and
appeared later than in urban centers. Farmington was, however, an
increasingly wealthy town beginning in the late 1700’s; grave markers
reflected increased wealth and materialism. We
give here a rough chronology:
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Chronology of Memento
Mori Gravestone Styles
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|
First period:
17th and early 18th centuries |
Primitive
or simply lettered. No images. Brownstone or fieldstone.
|
Early Images:
Early to mid-18th century. |
Grim winged death’s heads. Images often rather
abstract. Vine or floral borders. Brownstone; later,
mica schist.
|
Later images:
Mid- to late 18th century |
Less grim; some portraits/profiles; other icons. |
Baroque:
Late 18th to early 19th
century |
More
exuberant and heavily decorated. Cherubic faces; realistic/stylized
upswept wings. “In memory of” in addition to simple
name/date.
|
Classical revival:
1790’s onward |
Marble. Willows, urns etc. Upright tablets. |
Egyptian revival:
1810 onward |
Obelisks. Various stones. |
Other styles, often “architectural”:
Mid-19th century onward.
|
Often granite. Little imagery.
|
There are a few replacement
stones as well, including two massive table-style markers dating
to the 1890s and a companion to the 1688 Hart stone placed
by descendents. And our soldiers from many wars have small government-issued
marble markers with bright flags.
Size and refinement of the
markers vary a great deal. Children’s are generally smaller
but lack the gentle images of childhood common in more sentimental
years to follow. In the early years, simply to have a grave
marker was an indication of higher socioeconomic status. Puritan
society was distinctly hierarchical, and bigger, fancier
stones were more common among the wealthy and powerful. Even
the charge for grave digging was sometimes assessed
according to the status of the departed.
The brownstone markers that remain
today all appear to have come from Connecticut quarries, though
we do not know their exact origins. (A more precise idea of the
origin of the stones could easily be addressed by chemical analysis
of tiny samples.) Estimates of the number of quarries vary. Allan
Ludwig in his “Graven Images” mentions five in the lower Connecticut
River Valley: Longmeadow, Windsor, Bolton, Middletown (Chatham)
and Portland. Bolton produced the durable schist; the others Triassic
brownstone of varying quality.
There were also many smaller local
quarries. One of these, in Farmington, is mentioned by John Treadwell
in his 1810 response to the survey of the Connecticut Academy of
Arts and Sciences. Treadwell reports that the stone was used
for grave markers, though he does not say how many. Quality ranged
from the dense and fine-grained tan of Longmeadow and darker East
Windsor stone to grainy brown sandstone/brownstone south of Hartford.
The big quarries in Chatham and Portland near Middletown were opened
in the early years of the 18th century and produced vast amounts
of stone of notoriously variable quality. As can be seen in Memento
Mori, this had a tendency to crumble, fracture and spall (exfoliate)
with freeze-thaw cycles. These problems accelerated the changeover
to schist in the 1750-1775 era, and later to marble. Improvements
in transportation allowed marble to reach Farmington from Bennington
and points north in Vermont.
The quality of brownstone employed
by Connecticut stonecutters determines the condition of the markers
today. Some stones in Memento Mori are remarkably preserved and
their carvings in excellent shape. Others are shattered and beyond
repair. Often, the exposed interior of the stones reveals a coarse-grained
sandy quality that cannot support grout or mortar. Marble has other
problems. There is a tendency for its calcium carbonate (CaCO3)
to “sugar” onto the surface and gradually efface carvings .
Memento Mori gravestone.
Photo by Brooke Martin
The marbles
are also thin, and often are found broken off and flat on the ground.
This is not due to vandals, but to the freeze-thaw damage to a stone
that may have tipped, offering leverage for a fracture. Granite
is durable, though sometimes in need of grouting. We have no slates
and few granite stones.
So who were the carvers,
those earliest of Connecticut folk artists and sculptors? We know
some by name, and more by their highly individual styles. They were
vigorous, brawny craftsmen whose wares achieved great renown and
are found up and down the Connecticut Valley and out in the hinterlands.
They belonged to dynasties that often extended over several generations.
The old trained the young, and styles can be traced from one family
and workshop to another.
No doubt there were artisans at
work in the earliest years, but their names are unknown to us. They and those who followed them had employments
other than stonework, as did other artisans and professional men. Many
were blacksmiths as well -- a convenience since tools dulled and
broke quickly on stone.
Memento Mori’s earliest known
carver is James Stanclift [Stancliff] Jr. (1692-1772) of Middletown/Chatham.
He belonged to a family of carvers; their work can be found from Saybrook to West Springfield, and they are represented in Boston
as well. The three Stanclifts known to us are represented by several
remaining gravestones. They are notable for first “opening” the
Middletown area quarries, and were the first to add the winged skull
motif to their artistry. A typical stone stands in the front row
of Memento Mori (photo below). It has borders of the “kidney and rope”
type, and the abstracted skull is notable for its short nose and
grim small straight mouth. The feathered wings, representing the
ascent of the soul to heaven, characteristically seem to sprout
high on the skull and are tightly restrained.
Memento Mori gravestone
Photo by Charles Leach, M.D.
Another carver represented in
Memento Mori is “Captain” Thomas Johnson “Esquire” (1690 -1761),
the first of Connecticut’s most prominent family of gravestone carvers.
He opened quarries east of the river at Middletown (Portland/Chatham)
and later in Cromwell. His son Steven is believed to have worked
with him. Son “Deacon” “Ensign” Thomas Jr. (1718-1774) and nephew
Thomas III “of Chatham” (1750-1789), as well as brother Joseph
(1698-?1783) of East Hartford, were also popular carvers and catered
to a clientele that included many of the elite. Their work can
be found in all the river towns, on the coast and on Long Island.
Their styles evolved with the fashions of the times, and the last
of their stones have cherubic faces, upswept wings and the florid
décor of the high baroque of the late 18th century. Unfortunately,
they often worked in the coarsely granular lower quality stone of
the Middletown area and many of their markers have deteriorated.
Memento Mori has a number of Johnson stones, including two prominent
ones in the front row: Esther Hawley and Sarah Bull. These have
floral borders, rosettes on the shoulders and two varieties of the
skull/soul face – one elongate and one round and less severe.
Memento Mori gravestone.
Photo by Charles Leach, M.D.
Stylized
wings resemble full down-combed hair. One of the stone’s inscriptions
is enclosed in a large full heart outline. The shallow carving and
careful lettering show that these markers are the work of Thomas
Johnson Jr. The faces lack the horrible toothiness of Captain
Johnson’s work, but there is no doubt that their message is in
part “Memento Mori.” Later baroque stones (photo below) in the
mid portion of the yard (Chauncy Root, James Cowles) are those of a Johnson or of one of
several imitators. The Johnsons were style-setters: Local
and itinerant carvers working away from the river copied them but
found it difficult to compete on their own ground.
One of these locals is known as
“The Bat Carver,” whose work is most likely represented in Memento
Mori. Though we do not know him by name, his work is recognizable
at a distance by its small faces, batlike undetailed wings, misspellings,
lumpy borders and imbalanced pinwheel rosettes. He seems to have
worked to the northwest of us, and his markers are found in Simsbury
and points north to Suffield. He apparently was popular (or his
stone durable), because many of his curious markers remain.
Memento Mori gravestone.
Photo by Brooke Martin
The memorial art of carver Gershom
Bartlett is a conspicuous presence in Memento Mori. His designs
are striking, and his stones -- of sparkling mica schist
--
have endured and stand out palely among the brownstones. Bartlett
was born in Bolton and worked much of his life in the schist
that
is quarried there. We know a good deal about him, and Dr. Ernest
Caulfield tells his story entertainingly in “Markers VIII,” a collection
of papers on Connecticut carvers. Bartlett was a veteran of the
French and Indian War and the American Revolution. In later years
he settled upriver in Norwich Vermont, carving markers until his
death in 1798. He was a supporter of Dartmouth College and a friend
of its founder, Eleazer Wheelock, and perhaps that is how he acquired
his D.D. degree.
Over a long life, Bartlett produced an incredible
number of gravestones; one can find them by the dozen in yards up
and down the Connecticut Valley. A good example in Memento Mori
is that of young Dr. Thomas Mather. This large tablet is easily
seen from Main Street and stands a few feet into the graveyard. Characteristic
of Bartlett’s work, tympanum and borders are deeply and expressively
cut; the skull is elongate big-nosed and doleful, and wears a four-pointed
crown. Its wings are highly stylized, with sinuous “French Curve”
elements ending in small terminal loops. One sees at once why (in
the many years during which he could not be identified) he was known
as “The Hook and Eye Carver” and excited great curiosity.
Other carvers carry nicknames,
as well -- given them by gravestone researchers and often witty.
One, for example, for Stephen Root, dated 1767, is attributed to
the "Meriden/Farmington Squint-Eyed Carver (CT)"; one for Daniel
Gridley of 1781 is attributed to" Southington/Meriden/Farmington
Profile Carvers 1780s (CT)"; and another one for Jonathan Gridley,
1794, is attributed to "Faces with Wings 1780-1799 (Multiple Carvers)."
No matter how we try, we have
not been able to connect the majority of markers with known carvers.
That is especially true of the myriad of thin marble standing slabs
that crowd the last rows of the yard. Wordings become brief. Imagery
becomes stereotyped -- the willow tree is a good example. Styles
are less well developed, and the stones (brought from afar and perhaps
inscribed by local shops) less original and individualized.
The
concept of “Memento Mori” -- warning the living to be aware always
of death and to prepare for it -- wanes as one walks back through the
yard into its crowded rear ranks. It is almost as though the 19th-century townspeople were already much too aware of the brevity of
life, as they had lost so many friends and family to infectious
diseases. The inscriptions express sadness, loss, romanticization
of death, classical but simply drawn elegance -- or return to the
text-only style of the first carvers.
Unfortunately, many of the early
markers are deteriorating -- recently from the pernicious effects
of acid rain and pollution. Even marble dissolves under their attack,
with calcium carbonate (calcite) depositing on its surface (“sugaring”).
The Village Green and Library Association has in place an endowment-supported program of conservation
by which we care for the most deserving stones on a year-by-year
basis. Stones are selected by “triage”: Criteria are artistry, historical
significance, state of decay and salvagability. In this effort,
we are fortunate to have the help of John Zito III of Beij Williams
and Zito -- another old family dynasty of artists in stone.
Memento Mori gravestone.
Photo by Brooke Martin
Techniques
of marker restoration have improved in recent years, and we can
avoid the damage caused in the past by iron bolts and rods, inappropriate
mortars, concrete bedding etc. At least thirteen markers have been
repaired using infills of color-matched grout and repair of fractures.
Because the work is time consuming and costly, we opt for blank
infill surfaces rather than the recarving used in Hartford’s Ancient
Graveyard. Many stones are also being “consolidated” -- with applications
of a fluid that penetrates the stone and bonds together the granules
of loosely-structured brownstone.
Sadly, many of the markers have
shed the layers of stone containing their inscriptions and can never
be repaired. This process has gone on for many years, and to some
of us seems to simply parallel in stone the inevitable decay of
those interred beneath.
Let us take you on a little stroll
through the yard to meet some of its residents. There, for example,
is Judah Woodruff, designer and builder of the Meeting House (1772)
and of 21 Farmington houses. The son of original proprietor Matthew
Woodruff, Judah was gifted and self-taught. He fought at Ticonderoga
in the French and Indian War and was a captain in the Revolution.
An independent character, he was excommunicated from the Farmington
church in 1797 after arguing with Rev. Joseph Washburn over his
religious convictions.
Several notable early pastors
are there as well. For example, Samuel Hooker (ca 1633- 1697) was
son of Hartford founder Thomas Hooker, and our second minister.
He was well-to-do and owned slaves. He was the first in town to own a watch
and a clock. A man of intelligence, he was Harvard-educated
and an educator of youths himself, preparing them for college. He
was one of four men delegated to negotiate the union of the Connecticut
Colony with New Haven Colony.
Grave
markers
of Thomas Hooker and Samuel Whitman.
Photo by Brooke Martin.
Hooker and his successor, Samuel
Whitman, lie beneath massive table grave markers (replaced
1890’s) in a prominent location. He is memorialized as “ye late
learned and pious pastor of ye 1st church”. He purchased the Stanley
Whitman House for his son Solomon. A few yards uphill from the Whitmans
lies Timothy Pitkin – the first wealthy and stylish pastor, liberal
and a “new light” in his beliefs. And to their left is Washburn,
Judah Woodruff’s nemesis.
Gravestone of Stephen Hart.
Photo by Brooke Martin
Others of note are Stephen Hart (d.1689), whose family built the
gristmill that since 1690 has stood at the bottom of Mill Lane;
Solomon and Martha Cowles, the tavern owners charged by Patriot
neighbors with serving boycotted English tea; Mathias Leaming, our
Tory who “hath got beyond the reach of parsecushion” and is buried
backwards; Mercy Bidwell, who was “struck by a thunderbolt”; and
... Bird, whose stone tells us that he was “killed by an insane
person.”
Clearly, newsworthy deaths belonged on markers – perhaps a survival
of the Puritans’ suspicion that such were the retributions of an
angry God.
Gravestone
of Mathias Leaming.
Photo by Brooke Martin.
In the rear ranks of marble tablets is that of 18-year-old Julia
Cowles, whose touching diary records her long decline
and death from tuberculosis. Nearby lies her young cousin Betsy
Mix, who died in her teens during the terrible spotted
fever epidemic. And there are many more of whom it can be said,
as it was of the Rev.
Noah Porter, that “he being dead yet speaketh”.
Memento Mori’s acre and a half do indeed speak of Farmington’s
remarkable past to those who are able to see and listen as they
pass the old graveyard. Its stones recall the dramas, tragedies,
conflicts -- and the affections -- of the many folks who dwelt in our
town before us. Would that we could have known those worthy, colorful
Yankees of another day who rest under the green turf of its grassy
hill.
The old markers are of themselves beautiful folk art; they
are also clues to mysteries and to an infinity of stories that
delight the lover of local history. Memento Mori is in fact a rich outdoor
museum, and deserves our most devoted care, protection and study.
Such places are the very anchors of our memories. Where would we
be without them?
--
September 15, 2006
Farmington Bicentennial
Quilt.
Photo by Brooke Martin
The Farmington Historical Society, P.O. Box 1645,
Farmington, CT 06034
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