Salem gravestones

[kittynh]

So I'm in Salem looking at the oldest cemetery, which is right in the heart of the tacky tourist district. You know the Wax Museum and the Wiccan tour...

I've worked as a tour guide in the oldest cemetery in CT, and I have to say these Salem graves seemed...well, kinda new.

The inscriptions were easy to read, there wasn't any dirt of moss on any of the stones. It just seemed to scream "Jesus Ossuary" to me.

I can't find any information that the stones are replicas. If nothing else they sure have mighty sharp carving of names and are easy to read. I"m used to having to do grave rubbings with a crayon to even read the inscriptions (or rubbing the surface of the grave with chalk.

My entire family was just laughing at me. "Of course these are real! They would say if they were replicas!" But they are just so CLEAN. And Legible.

It all just screamed to my artist brain FAKE! Or certainly not just sitting around aging over the years.

My spidey senses are tingling.

[TragicMonkey]

Could they have been professionally cleaned, since they are tourist attractions? Or even been retooled with new chiselling to fix blurring?

[kittynh]

well, the artist in me says to touch something like a grave from 1680 would be a sacrilige! You just do not "touch up" something THAT old.

Clean up yes, but the fine writing, I think not. Not even any weathering on the lettering!

[TragicMonkey]

well, the artist in me says to touch something like a grave from 1680 would be a sacrilige! You just do not "touch up" something THAT old.

It depends on what it is, and what its purpose is. A gravestone is meant to commemorate the resting place of the dead individual. Its artistic value is secondary to its function. From that perspective, doing whatever it takes to preserve or enhance the writing, should it become illegible, is the proper course of action.

From a historian's standpoint, it could be either good or bad. Bad, in that it's interfering with an artefact and altering it, thus muddling study of it. Good in that ensuring the writing remains visible, it's preserving historical data.

[kittynh]

I just read one website about the erosion caused by acid rain and other pollutants on New England tombstones.

These tombstones did not look at all like the ones on the web site.

I just know how an old tombstone feels. Plus, they were very consistant with the type of stone used. That alone was suspicious.

[TragicMonkey]

If you're sure the gravestones are fakes, the next step is to check to see if the graves are occupied. By empiricism. Bring a shovel.

Come on, it's for science!

[Jeff Corey]

My quess is that they are replicas. They aren't even in Salem Village, which (witch?) was where Danvers, inland from the seaport, is presently located. I have been interested in this for a while, because family legend is that Giles was an ancestor.

[Larry Barrieau]

Hi Kitty,

This is off the top of my head so it may not be correct. When I lived in Salem that cemetery contained and still does the actual gravestones of those people. There are a couple of the judges, some of the local folks who were on the periphery of the trials but none of the hanged witches. (They were cast into a depression on Hanging Hill and it was not permitted for the families to claim them although it is supposed that Rebecca Nurse's body was taken in the night for secret burial on her property.) Some stones predate the witch trials. The slate stones still look pristine. I guess the acid has little affect on them. (Ask Kitten) The motifs can tell a little of the age. The first motifs were a skull and crossbones called Death's Head. That softened in the early 1700's to morph into a cherubs head and wings. Then in the mid 1700's the motif became the urn and willow signifying death and rebirth.

What you may have seen is right next to this cemetery the city put a memorial to the 20 who were murdered. This consists of granite markers with their names and death dates on them and some quotes chisled in from the actual trial transcripts. I think this is no older than about 15 years.

[kittynh]

Yeah, I'm familiar with the progression of carving.

And I do know that a Victorian marker will usually show more wear than a slate marker from colonial times.

I have been reading about a big preservation effort that was made for the cemeteries in town, so I just think I've never seen CLEAN tombstones. In CT most of the cemeteries were more of the Steven King looking type.

It's just weird to not see moss and growth in the lettering. Easy to read markers just isn't something I've seen, but I have to remember this place is overrun with tourists (another oddity, the historic stones just open for tourist souvenier plundering....)

I just saw that on ebay you can buy dirt from the cemetery for your Wiccan ceremonies! I don't know how much dirt is being sold (or indeed if it really IS from Salem cemeteries) but it seems to be that if dirt is going good - what about a chip from a tombstone? I guess at the cemetery in Windsor, CT they were a little more protective, while still preserving the "feel" of a spooky graveyeard.

[geni]

In the UK I've run across 16whatever gravestones. However what they are made from playes a massive part. Once you get over 100 years moss and lichen doesn't tell you much since there are so many factors (the stone, humans, the direction it faces in) that can mess it up.

[Jess]

The Old Burying Point in Salem is just an extremely well-kept graveyard.

Current Photos: http://www.gravematter.com/cem-ma-salem.asp ETA: This site also says that broken stones have been restored. It doesn't say which ones, however.

And if you have access to Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0738500844&id=h34lvT-NcR8C&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=Old+Burying+Point&sig=t4c1Ppu4efrpwYcFaGvpbnqT5ws&hl=en

Those photos reprinted there are from around 1892, for the bicentennial of the event. So, there's documentation that they've been there for at least 100 years, and they look like they were in good shape at the time, too.

There is a memorial to the Salem Witch Trial victims at the Old Burying Point, as Larry said, that should not be confused with the real graves. I'm pretty sure it's not this that you're skeptical about, since that's obviously very modern. It's just that the Salem graves are clean, intact, and legible, and so many Connecticut graves are not. Connecticut can't profit off their gravesites in the same way Salem can, so they're not often kept up, which is a shame. I'd really like to get a poem off of one from the 1830s that's been weathered badly. I need to consult the grave inscription index at the Connecticut State Historical Society to get my answer (one of these days...). Amazingly, the guy who compiled this index located graveyards submerged underwater.

[kittynh]

thanks Jess. Where I was in CT you were supposed to get written permission to look at the older graves and such.

My house in Windsor CT had a dirt cellar. You almost couldn't tell, since the house was well over 200 years old. When it rains in the Spring in Windsor, any home NOT 150 years old has flooding in the basements, if not the whole area. The point is that the area is so old any dry spots were built on long ago. New homes were going up and being sold in August, and homeowners were very surprised in the Spring.

I worked at the Congregationalist church there, and got to see where they would store the bodies until the Spring thaw to bury them. Oddly, I coudln't get any good ghost stories out of people! Windsor had a witch (she was hung), the house that inspired "Arsenic and Old Lace" was in town. But no one knew of a ghost. I was actually researching a story on ghosts for a friend that did a little blurb in the church newsletter about the history of the area. I knocked on the door of every house in the historic district (the house I was renting was there) and NOT ONE GHOST!

That is when I really began to like New England.

[Jess]

thanks Jess. Where I was in CT you were supposed to get written permission to look at the older graves and such.


That's very strange. The 1700 era graves that were near me didn't have any restrictions that I know of. They weren't in gated yards, and weren't attached to a church, though. For example, the oldest grave in my hometown is from 1726, and you can walk right up to it if you wanted. In fact, the summer camps used to take us to do rubbings when we were kids. :)

[kittynh]

Nope the graveyard in Windsor is in the historic district and the very well to do folk that live there are PROTECTIVE! No crayon rubbing without permission!

People do wander in and try, but the church there makes sure a "guide" rushes out to help you. I did this work and it was a lot of fun, except when people from Texas and stuff came and kept saying, "it's so OOOuwld."

Mind you they were still burying people there!

Now no one cared if you sifted through the old dump on the hillside to look for old bottles.

But you weren't allowed to even LOOK at your house and think, "maybe it would be nice with new shutters" without permission from THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION BOARD!!!

Made me figure out why I didn't want to live in a historic district ever again. (note to self, they really didn't mean those personal things they said to you when you put a Mr.Turtle sandbox for your kid in the front yard. I'm sure they were directed to Mr.Turtle)

[Jess]

Bah. :) I wish our historical preservation boards would make a few historical home-owners put a fresh coat of paint on their houses. Nothing like peely old buildings to brighten a neighborhood.

However, no one should have the right to ban Mr. Turtle sandboxes. They are the BEST sandboxes ever. And if they didn't cost so much these days, I'd buy one for my turtles instead of using the post-season kiddie pool.

I was recently surprised to discover that you could buy plots in a relatively small, old graveyard on the east side of town. I was sure this graveyard was closed since the early 1900s, but I guess I was wrong.

...People from Texas take tours of Windsor, CT? >_> Have I missed something there that I should know about?

[kittynh]

the witch is real, but the graves...ahhh, you can see the local "Gravestones R Us" in the background.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/5153/aynzingraves5tq.th.jpg (http://img176.imageshack.us/my.php?image=aynzingraves5tq.jpg)

[kittynh]

Windsor has the oldest grave and the oldest house. Pallisado Avenue, which sounds Southwestern to me, actually is where the old pallisade was to protect from Indians. There is a stop on the Underground Railroad there and there is a home of a chief justice, and Washington actually did sleep there!

The Congregationalist church is picture perfect and a great tour. However, at some point someone allowed 2 stained glass windows! I used to get into fights with the assistant minister about how we should REMOVE the offending Victorian monstrosities!

There are people from Texas and all over that come to New England on vacation. I am usually trying not to run over one of them when I drive to work over a covered bridge in Vermont. Yes, we actually USE them. No, you can not stand in the middle of traffic holding it up so you can get a photo without any cars in it.

Oh well....

[Jess]

Oh, okay. I know about the oldest house, now that I think of it. I had meant to go visit that at some point, but I never have the time. As for Washington, I'm pretty sure there's a claim he slept in an inn pretty close to where I live now. However, so many people like to make this claim that I'd have to actually go and look it up to be sure of it. :) That, and I'm not even sure if there is an inn anymore where they claimed he slept!

There's a circa 1775 Church here too--I'm pretty sure all the old towns in CT have them. It's just a local staple. Ours, I guess, is just not special enough to attract Texans. I wonder why?

Hmm, but no one visits our so-called "oldest" Civil War monument either...

I feel so unloved.

[bruto]

I grew up in a town in CT, next to a cemetery where the gravestones went back to about 1740. It always seemed that at least some of the slate stones held up well, and they didn't seem to grow the lichen that attacked the slighly later marble ones. Those would erode and get fuzzy, as well as turning black from lichen, where the slate stones just wore down more evenly unless they delaminated. The stone did vary a good deal, and maybe Salem just had a really good grade of slate.