Detail of a replica
tombstone for Ebenezer Watson, Revolutionary War-era publisher
of the "Connecticut Courant" newspaper.
Little
Village of the Dead:
HARTFORD, CONN.
An outstanding example of the cemetery as a source of cultural
and historical insight is in the heart of downtown Hartford.
Established in 1640, it is the oldest surviving historic site in
one of America's oldest cities. Listed on the National Register
of Historic Places, annually receives thousands of visitors from
around the world each year.
A new illustrated self-guided walking tour brochure offers
visitors an entertaining and enlightening entrée into , which is
located at the intersection of Main and Gold streets. The walking
tour highlights a dozen markers, the oldest dating from the
1660s, the newest erected in 1998. These specific stones are
representative of the fascinating stories and extraordinary
artistry awaiting one who enters or indeed almost any of the
"little villages of the dead" as historian Kevin M. Sweeney has
vividly characterized the thousands of historic cemeteries
throughout New England.
was the final resting-place for the great majority of Hartford
residents who died between 1640 and 1807 - an estimated 6,000
men, women, and children. Throughout its 175 years of active use,
a gravestone was an expensive luxury that perhaps only one out of
every 10 people could afford. The earliest count, done in 1835,
found 563 stones in .
John Ely of Springfield, Mass., carved this tombstone for Irish
immigrant and tavern keeper William Knox.
Centuries of constant exposure to the punishing New England
weather, air pollution, carelessness, and vandalism had by the
mid-Twentieth Century destroyed at least 100 of the stones
originally installed in , many of which were brownstone, which is
exceptionally vulnerable to the elements. In addition, like so
many irreplaceable artifacts, has not always been appreciated or
cared for with respect. As early as 1737, Hartford's First
Congregational Church was granted permission to erect a new
meetinghouse on one corner of the graveyard. That structure was
replaced in 1807 by the current brick church, designed by patron
of the arts Daniel Wadsworth. That church, boasting a soaring
ornate white Baroque-style three-stage spire, as well as
stained-glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany, recently
completed a major restoration. It is the first stop, and the only
building, on self-guided walking tour.
Commercial structures and other buildings encroached upon edges
of over the years as downtown Hartford grew into a densely
populated urban center, whittling it away until it reached its
present size of approximately four acres. The total disregard for
the site's historic contents that prevailed at different points
in time was shockingly demonstrated in 1902 when workers digging
a cellar under part of the church hit as many as 20 intact
coffins. The laborers broke open the wooden boxes, shoveled out
the bones, and carted them off like so much trash.
Organized efforts to preserve were undertaken periodically,
beginning as early as 1836. A major state-of-the-art restoration
project launched in the 1980s that continues to this day has
resulted in the repair, restoration, or total replication of more
than 100 stones, making a case study in the possibilities - and
occasional pitfalls - of saving historic graveyards.
Today approximately 415 gravestones still stand in . They are
eloquent messengers from the past, as gravestones included on the
self-guided walking tour demonstrate. The chiseled words alone
often provide stirring glimpses into the world of two or more
centuries ago. Personal tragedy on a scale almost
incomprehensible in the modern era is described in the epitaph
for 41-year-old Mary Skinner, who died in 1772 and was buried
"with 10 of her Children by her Side who all Died Soon After they
ware Born." The high esteem in which the Reverend Samuel Stone,
second pastor of the First Church of Christ, who died in 1663,
was held is expressed in an epitaph describing him as "New
Englands Glory & her Radiant Crowne," and declaring
"Hartford; Thy Richest Jewel's Here Interred."
In many cases the inscriptions don't begin to tell the story, as
demonstrated by the gravestones for Richard Edwards and his wife
Mary, which are included on the self-guided walking tour. The
plain, unadorned marker for Richard, who died in 1718, and the
forbidding death's heads on that for Mary, his second wife, who
died five years later, give no hint that this couple were two of
the three key figures in an early Connecticut scandal involving
adultery, questionable paternity, insanity, and divorce - details
of which are provided in the walking tour brochure.
The imagery carved into gravestones, which were the major form of
sculpture produced in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New
England, is as revealing as the words. Size counted when it came
to gravestones in colonial Connecticut. In the 1600s and 1700s
the most prestigious grave marker - the "Cadillac" of gravestones
as Antiquarian & Landmarks Society director Bill Hosley terms
it - was a massive brownstone slab laid flat atop four brownstone
legs approximately three feet high. Quarrying and transporting
the materials for these "tablestones" as they were known was by
itself so expensive that to have one as a gravemarker was a
powerful statement of the deceased's wealth and prestige.
Decorative carving began to appear on gravestones in in the late
1600s. Over the course of the next century this ornamentation
evolved dramatically in response to both changes in the Puritan
religious faith that dominated Connecticut and in the technical
skill and artistic creativity of the carvers. The earliest
decorated stones, like that of Phenias Willson, whose gravemarker
dated 1692 is included on self-guided walking tour, bear the
image of a hollow-eyed skull, often with bat-like wings.
This "death's head" is believed to symbolize the early Puritans'
grim emphasis on human mortality and the moldering away of the
flesh. Beginning around 1730 the death's head became more human
in appearance, more sophisticated in design and execution. These
"angel's heads," like the one on the gravestone on the walking
tour commemorating the death in 1766 of Richard Bernham, are
believed to symbolize the soul's flight to heaven, with the
emphasis now on the blissful afterlife that awaited the
righteous. Some scholars have attributed this dramatic change to
the intensely emotional religious revival that began in the late
1730s that has become known to history as the Great Awakening.
The final stage in the evolution of gravestone ornamentation in
occurred around 1800. Rising nationalism and secularism swept
away the religious imagery, replacing it with Neo-classical
images of mortality, such as the urn and willow. A striking
example of this new artistic sensibility on walking tour is the
broken column, symbolizing the cutting down of greatness, that
marks the grave of Jeremiah Wadsworth, Revolutionary War veteran,
influential figure on the local and national political scenes,
pioneering industrialist and financier, and patron of the arts,
who died in 1804.
The men who carved these stones developed their own individual,
distinctive artistic styles. Hartford's Ancient Burying Ground
"contains some of the most intriguing and beautiful gravestones
in Connecticut," according to Bill Hosley. Hosley also notes that
Hartford's lack of a local source of stone and the town's
far-flung cultural and commercial ties led residents to
commission gravemarkers from beyond the immediate area, with the
result that "is a veritable catalog of the art and craft of
stonecutting in early Connecticut." The self-guided walking tour
includes fine examples of the work of such well-known Connecticut
carvers as Gershom Bartlett and Aaron Haskins, both of Bolton;
James Stanclift of Portland; and Isaac Sweetland of Hartford.
Detail of a reproduction made in the 1980s of the gravestone
for Roderick Olcott. It is an exceptional example of the
baroque motif of an urn and willow.
A few dedicated craftsmen today carry on the gravestone carver's
tradition. Allen Williams of the Chester Granite Company in Otis,
Massachusetts, displayed impressive artistry and accuracy in
carving a number of reproductions of gravestones for , including
that for Connecticut Courant newspaper publisher Ebenezer
Watson, who died in 1777. Nick Benson of the John Stevens shop of
Newport, R.I., carved an entirely new stone that bears witness to
the enormous potential of an historic graveyard to be a force for
new insights and a broader understanding of history.
The stone memorializes more than 300 African Americans, slave and
free, who were interred in . It had its genesis in research
conducted by a group of Hartford middle school students into the
blacks who were buried there. The students took their findings
and launched a campaign to erect a memorial to these forgotten
figures from Hartford's past. The result was a black slate stone
carved by Benson with imagery based on an Eighteenth Century
stone in Newport, R.I., that was carved by an African American to
mark the grave of an African American. The stone, installed in
1998, has earned inclusion on the Connecticut Freedom Trail of
important sites in the state's African-American history.
walking tour brochure was produced by Association, Inc., a
private, non-profit group dedicated to preserving and
interpreting the historic graveyard. Major funding was provided
by a grant from the Connecticut Humanities Council Cultural
Heritage Development Fund. Copies of the brochure can be obtained
free of charge by calling 860/561-2585; or by writing to
Association at P.O. Box 231257, Hartford, Conn. 06123-1257.
The brochure is also available at many tourist information sites
around the state, including the Old State House, The Connecticut
Historical Society, the Greater Hartford Tourism District office,
the Greater Hartford Arts Council, and the Legislative Office
Building information desk in Hartford, and the Bradley
International Airport Welcome Center in Windsor Locks.
The gates to , to which entrance is free, are open 10 am to 4
pm Monday through Saturday, and 10 am to 2 pm on Sunday, April 1
to November 30. is open by appointment only December 1 to March
31. For appointments, call 860/561-2585 or call the Hartford
Guides at 860/522-0855. Group guided tours can be arranged by
calling 860/561-2585.
