A Haunting We Will Go

 It’s that time of year again, yards are full of ghosts, fake grave stones, and huge inflated cats, cauldrons, pumpkins, and dragons. Cemeteries take on a special aura, as scary tales about creatures wandering the earth are told. While cemeteries may be part of the Halloween tradition, I spend a lot of time in them throughout the year. Sometimes the stones associated with a grave are expressions of overwhelming grief and loss. Cemeteries also tell us a great deal about how people viewed their position in the social structure and how a person wished to be remembered, or at least how their family and friends wanted them to be remembered. Others stones, especially those that have no inscription, tell us that the family wanted the final resting place of the loved one remembered, even if they couldn’t afford a commercially made stone. For Halloween this year I’d like to share a few of the more interesting grave stones I’ve encountered while hunting for and recording graves in Charles County.

 

St. Ignatius Church Cemetery overlooking the Port Tobacco River

Perhaps the saddest stones are those that express a family’s grief. Three of the stones in Gunston Cemetery, a small family cemetery on land that belonged to the Fowke family, are clear expressions of grief and their belief in a blessed afterlife. The stones are for Catherine (Fowke) Wills and her children William and Augusta. Catherine married Dr. Francis Reed Wills on 15 December 1829, when she was 19. Over the next decade she had at least five children: John Baptist (1831-1859), Maria Ann (1833-1909), William Augustus (1836-1839), Martha Elizabeth (circa 1839-1912), and Augusta (1840-1842). William Augustus died in January 1839 at the age of 3. The inscription on his gravestone reads: “This infants race was lovely as it was short but his bereaved parents have the comfort to know that he has gone from sin and sorrow to live forever with the blessed.” 

The style of the stone is what is known as a headboard, the graves often had footstones with initals carved in them. The idea was to make the grave look like a bed to convey the idea  that the deceased was asleep, not dead, waiting for judgement day when they would awaken. Baby Augusta’s grave stone is also a headboard and it tells us that she was Francis and Catherine’s third daughter and that she “died the 14 of August 1842 at the interesting age of 20 months.”

 

 

Two and half months after Augusta’s death, Catherine died on 7 November 1842 at the age of 32 years, 7 months, and 18 days. Her grave stone is also the head board style with a weeping willow tree at the top - a sign of mourning. It states: “This monument is erected to her memory by her afflicted and distressed husband.” Francis Wills eventually remarried in 1851. His second wife was Theresa “Olivia” Hughes, by whom he had 11 children. He was buried at “Preference” the home he and Catherine built in the 1840s.

 

Over 100 years later, Sylvester and Alberta Gray lost their 18 year old son Marshall. He was born about 1932 and according to the 1950 census, he worked as a brick layer’s helper. Marshall drowned in June 1950 in Mattawoman Creek. When Marshall died the family had five children living at home. Sylvester was a laborer who worked at the Indian Head Naval powder factory. While the family could afford commercially produced stones in the 1980s when Sylvester and Alberta died, they probably couldn’t afford one in 1950. Yet they wanted a stone to memorialize their young son that included his name. The stone is located in Alexandria Chapel Cemetery, which is associated with a historic African American United Methodist Church. It is hand carved, not commercially produced, and only has his name written on it. The stone memorializes the Gray’s young son who died just as his adult life was starting. 

While the stones for Catherine Wills and her two young children and for Marshall Gray clearly express the family’s grief over their deaths, the stone for Joseph Young (1788-1855) portrays him as his children wanted everyone to remember him. The stone, which was erected in July 1858, three years after his death, is in a small family cemetery on a high ridge on the plantation that once belonged to him. The inscription reads in part “...a kind husband, affectionate father, an indulgent master, a good neighbor, and a caring friend; and in all things of life he so deported himself as to win upon the affections and regard of all whom he was brought in contact. This tablet is erected to his memory by his four children as a memento of their love and reverence.”

A more recent stone at Alexandria Chapel memorializes the achievements of William Alexander Diggs (1918-1995). He is described as a “Historian and Educator, Founder of African American Historical Society and Museum of Charles County.” This is the largest stone in the cemetery and is clearly meant to memorialize a man who was tremendously important to the church (which his grandfather William A. Jordan founded) and the African American community.

 

Another stone, in the Mount Zion Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, expresses the appreciation of a wealthy white family for an African American man who worked for them for over 75 years. Robert Chambers was first employed by the Sutton Family in North Carolina and came north with them to Maryland in 1920.

The graves of poor Charles Countians were often marked only by a simple wood cross or a plain rock. Sometimes crosses were made by pouring Portland cement into a form. The cross is placed at the head of the grave and a concrete post is at the foot. Several examples of these may be found in the Alexandria Chapel Cemetery. None of these have the names or dates of the person for whom they were erected included on the cross. 

 

Alexandria Chapel United Methodist Church Cemetery

 

 Concrete Slab marked with "H"
Mount Zion Colored
Methodist Episcopal
Church Cemetery

Several of the historic African American cemeteries that I’ve visited are marked by handmade stones. At the Mount Zion Methodist Episcopal Cemetery there is a concrete slab with an “H” inscribed on it. There are also two small unmarked rocks.

These types of markers have shown up at other cemeteries in the county – including one at a plantation known as Greenwood and at the Gunston Cemetery. Greenwood was part of a plantation known as Three Sisters. Back in the woods was a single commercially produced stone for Jane Watson, who she was is unknown. A few feet away from her grave were two plain rounded rocks.

Unmarked Stones at Mount Zion Cemetery

 

Unmarked Stones at Greenwood

 

 

Recently, the CCASM volunteers and I have been privileged to mark the grave fosse (0r indentations) in three historic African American Cemeteries in Charles County: Carroll Cemetery in Nanjemoy, Alexandria Chapel in Chicamuxen, and Mount Zion on Mount Hill near Port Tobacco. The former two received grants from the African American Heritage Society to place crosses on these graves, thereby memorializing the dead.

 

Recently marked graves at the Carroll Cemetery

As you wander through cemeteries, either this Halloween, or throughout the year, remember that the epitaphs are a way to tell us, the living, about the grief of those left behind, or a final attempt to create a positive image of the dead. The handmade stones also express grief by families for their dead children, their parents, and other family members. Even the plain unmarked stones and wood posts and crosses are placed to remember those wh0 have died. We may not know their names or when they lived, but we know that their families and friends wanted to remember where they were buried to return and honor their memories.

I close with a poem that was common on grave stones in the 18th century.

Remember me as you pass by,

As you are now so once was I,

As I am now so you must be,

Prepare for death and follow me.

Happy Halloween!