Funerary art in Puritan New England encompasses graveyard headstones carved between c. 1640 and the late 18th century by the Puritans, founders of the first American colonies, and their descendants. Early New England Puritan funerary art conveys a practical attitude towards 17th-century mortality; death was an ever-present reality of life,Ludwig (2000), p. 52 and their funerary traditions and grave art provide a unique insight into their views on death. The minimalist decoration and lack of embellishment of the early headstone designs reflect the British Puritan and Anglo-Saxon religious cultures.
The earliest Puritan graves in the New England states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island were usually dug without planning, in designated local burial grounds. They were mostly unmarked, but sometimes given upright slate, sandstone or granite stones containing factual, but often blunt and inelegant, inscriptions. Later generations decorated their headstones with carvings, most dramatically in the late 17th century with depictions of death's head, a stylized skull, sometimes with wings or crossed bones."Iconography of Gravestones at Burying Grounds". Boston City Hall, October 25, 2019. Retrieved April 11, 2020
Other examples show the deceased being carried by the wings, which supposedly took the soul to heaven.Wenhworth Batignani (2003), p. 206 From the 1690s, the imagery became less severe and began to include winged cherubs (known as "soul effigies") who had fuller faces and rounder and more life-sized eyes and mouths. In headstones dating from the Federalist Era, the rise of secularism saw the prominence of urn and willow imagery.
Stonecarvers
The craftsmen behind the early headstones were generalist tradesmen who also worked as smiths, leather-workers or printers. They tended to work locally rather than as itinerant journeyman. Many surviving headstones share decorative traditions, although with some regional variations. The oldest known professional colonial grave carver was George Griswold (1633–1704) of Windsor, Connecticut, active between the 1640s and 1690s. His earliest surviving work is an enclosed 1644 table marker for the Reverend Ephraim Huit of the First Church of Windsor. The Boston region experienced rapid population growth in the mid to late 17th century, prompting the need for full-time grave carvers. While the names of these carvers are unknown, the earliest identified "hand" worked from 1665 until the turn of the century and is known as the "Old Stone Cutter", “Charlestown Master”, or "Old Stone Cutter of Charlestown". Two of his known apprentices—William Mumford and Joseph Lamson— built their own workshops.
Through probate documentation, newspapers and inscriptions, historians have identified individual carvers behind particular headstones. Some 300 carvers working in New England have been identified, although very little is known about the majority of them. Exceptions include John Lamson of Ipswich, Gershom Bartlett of Bolton, William Mumford of Boston, Josiah Manning and his sons Fredrick and Rockwell of Franklin,Makers of the Markers, p. 1 John Zuricher of Manhattan, the James Foster family of Dorchester, The Stevens Family of Newport,Roark (2003), p, 54 and Nathaniel Holmes (active c. 1805) of Plymouth among others.Blachowicz (2006) Other successful early stone carvers include Gershom Bartlett (1723 – 1798) and Zerubbabel Collins (1733–1797).Shapleigh-Brown, 2013
By the mid-18th century, stone-carving had become an industry with its own system of apprenticeships and workshops. Although not considered a fine art, stone crafting required skill and knowledge, including selecting fine stone from rock outcroppings, shaping them, preparing their faces and carving the reliefs. Different carving schools emerged across New England, including The John Stevens Shop in Newport, and the Rhode Island carvers Gabriel Allen and Charles Hartshorn, most of whom worked from local slate. The Connecticut River valley was prized for its brownstone quarries, which were often used by the region's grave carvers. Portland, Connecticut in particular had one of the largest brownstone quarries, and many carvers were based there due to the ample supply of material. Families such as the Stanclifts and Johnsons emerged, with generations of tradesmen perfecting the art of carving from soft, malleable stone. Brownstone was prized due to its manipulative properties making it easier to carve elaborate designs when compared to Granite Schist or Slate, though ironically, these characteristics made the stone more prone to weathering and erosion than the latter materials.Roark (2003), p, 55
Materials used depended on the region, varying from slate, brownstone, schist, shale, and gneiss. Later, marble became fashionable in the early 19th century and phased out most other materials.Wood (2008), p. 194 Early puritan era carvers were especially preoccupied by the economy of line, geometric shapes and, at times abstract patterns. They exhibit an unstyled, primitive approachLudwig (2000), p. 431 that tends towards simplicity and naturalism. As this aesthetic did not re-emerge in later American art, it became, according to the historian Allan Ludwig, as a "half-finished experiment in form making. Its place...must therefore be described as one of quiet isolation. Nothing of the older tradition remained after 1815 but the silence of a forgotten epoch."Ludwig (2000), p.428
Attitude towards death Although modern Western culture tends to avoid the reality of the disposal of its dead, in Puritan society, it was a common fact of life. Thus, their art reflects a pragmatic approach, embracing realistic imagery that evokes human decay into skulls and bones. Their use of simplistic, line-drawn imagery was a deliberate rejection of Catholic iconography, a choice also reflected in the design of their churches, portrait paintings and stained glass.Garvan (1960), p. 108 However, in a society that largely rejected visual art as idolatry, images created for funeral rites and headstones themselves were among the few artworks most people in this period would be exposed to.
Puritan grave art reflects a deliberate move away from the European High Baroque type. Because its first-generation craftsmen developed their craft in isolation in the new world, as self-taught, their works can be described as folk art, expressed in a vernacular style.Ludwig (2000), p. 244Ludwig (2000), p. 65 In this, their output reflects a general move towards a more vernacular and direct mode of expression, but practically the style allowed the production of a far greater number of stylized headstones by removing the need for the carvers having deep workshop experience. Although the New England style was heavily influenced by contemporary or slightly earlier trends in rural England and Scotland,Ludwig (2000), p. 249 this was more in terms of iconography and symbols than style.Ludwig (2000), p. 258 New England art of the time avoided Biblical allegories and depictions of the Christian cross.
Late 19th-century academics tended to view older graveyards as basically museums that were, as the historian Richard Meyer observed, distant "outdoor, spatially delineated repositories of cultural artefacts". Modern historians see them as unique artefacts which provide insight into the thoughts and beliefs of the people buried within.Meyer (1989), chapter 1, p. 2 Expanding on this, the historian Terry G. Jordan said that, given the artifact's density and state of preservation in New England, "nowhere else [in America] is it possible to look so deeply into our people's past". Meyer's takes this further, writing that the grave art of this period "exhibit patterns of change over temporal spans...and...can in many instances yield valuable cultural insights to a number of discrete time periods, including the present." Following Forbes work, researchers applied social sciences techniques in interpretation.
In 1983, the historian James Hijiya raised concerns about the prevailing academic approach and methodology and argued that, given that the early carvers left no account of their intentions, no credible inference could be made on their "outlook on life and death."Hijiya (1983), pp. 339-340 A significant scholar in the field, Hijiya argued that any reading into the meaning of any stone has to consider "information extraneous to the stones themselves", such as "writings produced at the same time as the carvings, though by different hands [and] aesthetic or anthropological theory which purports to illuminate human behavior at any time".Hijiya (1983), p. 340 He suggested an approach similar to the art historian Erwin Panofsky; that there is no reason to assume that any decoration is "uniquely determined."
Styles In contrast to contemporary US headstones, the remaining early Puritan examples are low in size and wide. They are often capped with a rounded tympanum resembling the semi-circular half-stones often found above the central doorway entrances into churches. The tympanum thus has symbolic meaning, reflecting the belief that through death, the soul moves from one world into the next. The theologian and minister William Perkins wrote that death was "a little wicket or doore whereby we passe out of this world and enter into heaven."Roark (2003), p. 59 This belief is also evident in some of the inscriptions, where the date of death is prefaced by terms such as "translated" or "exchanged" rather than "died". The phrase "Here Lies the Body" (or "Here lyes Buried the Body") makes this more explicit, implying that while the remains are present in the ground below, the soul has gone elsewhere.
Hijiya divides Northeastern American gravestones into six broad and overlapping styles, which he says are reflective of "six different attitudes toward death".Hijiya (1983), p. 341 Of these, the first three are strictly "Puritan", made before the style softened into Unitarianism and Methodism imagery.Dethlefsen; Deetz (1966), p. 508 The six styles as described by Hijiya are:
"Plain Style" (1640–1710) "Death's Head" (1670–1770) "Cherubs" / "Angels" (1740–1820) "Urn and Willow" (1780–1850) "Monumentalism" (1840–1920) "Modern Plain Style" (1900–2001)
Plain Style The first generation of settlers did not build communal burial grounds; instead, they buried their dead on the highest point on their property and marked individual graves with wooden slabs or fieldstones.Batignani (2003), p. 3 The earliest New England Puritan burying grounds date from the 1630s, and were, according to writer Meg Greene, "simply places to deposit the remains of the dead". In adherence to the second biblical commandment, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image", the earliest settlers sought to avoid the worship of ancestors through stone images.Roark (2003), p, 53 In addition, they sought to avoid the use of the traditional Catholic cross, while table-type tombs were seen as too elaborate, practically and aesthetically.Garvan (1960), p. 112 The graves had little order to their plotting,Greene (2007), p. 13 and were either unmarked or were marked by a wooden sign or an uncut rock, with only very few having simple greenstone or carved headstone,Hijiya (1983), p. 342 usually with no decorations or ornamentation.