Being Prepared

I've been shooting pictures of entire cemeteries in the Barre, MA area this past year to upload to findagrave.com.  Most recently I found Riverside Cemetery, which is definitely what I would describe as off the beaten trail.  More accurately it is off the paved trail.  It is located in a wooded recreational area about a mile and a half from Route 62 in Barre (for those not from New England, you pronounce that 'bear - eeee').  Generally I would not have driven off down a dirt road - walked yes, but driven in a vehicle not meant for off - roading - no.  I'd already shot two cemeteries that morning and didn't want to wander aimlessly in the woods when I wasn't even certain this was the correct road.  I've been warned by enough friends that I need to not wander around in the woods alone.  Wolves, you know.

The narrow one lane road wound through the trees, up, down and around.  To my surprise there were a few homes tucked into clearings - that's privacy!  One was appropriately a log cabin.  Recent rains were evident in the erosion and I wondered how far I could or should continue.  Just when I had decided that I was going to turn around in the next possible spot and go back to research the location better, my "cemetery sense" tingled.  Off to my right, down a rutted path and through the sun tickled woods, I could make out a clearing that I felt could be it.  I couldn't see a gate or the headstones, just the hint of a clearing on a rise of land.  That usually means "Cemetery" and usually gives me a burst of energy. 

There it was.  Riverside Cemetery.  It was much larger than I had anticipated with a large white arch at the entrance. I had not planned to stop, but considering it was so far in the woods and I didn't know when I would be back that way, I thought I should start shooting the images of it as well.

Having already shot two cemeteries that leads me to the title - "Being Prepared".  I am generally, in spite of the fact that I was never a girl scout, very prepared.  I get that from my mother.  At her funeral it was said that she was a woman who would produce the makings of a picnic, including a cake from her purse.  It's a bit of an exaggeration, but there was always a spare iced cake in the freezer in case of company.

In general being prepared for shooting the cemetery means to me having at least the following tools in addition to the camera:

• Extra charged batteries (one or two) How many you need depends on the battery life.  Batteries for newer cameras seem to me to last longer - I get four hours each out of the Sony Lithium battery pack for my CyberShot if I am shooting stills (far less if shooting video).  I'd been out shooting already four hours, so these were very useful.
• Extra memory card(s).  When I first started I was using a 1 GB card.  Now I am using 8 and 16 GB cards and have never filled a card of that size in one trip.  For whatever reason, that morning I put an extra in my pocket.  And as luck would have it, halfway through the cemetery, the card in the camera was reportedly full, so I did need it. 
• Soft brushes - to brush off dirt or dust from the face of stones, especially those that are flush to the ground surface.  I am no stranger to grave dirt under the nails though.  I use soft make-up brushes for cleaning up things like mushrooms but for headstones a larger soft brush that will not do any damage to the surface of the stone is useful.
• Food - munchies and water primarily.  I lose track of time and cemeteries do not have concessions.

Those are my basics, but there are more items I have learned are very useful:

•  Mirror or reflective sun shield - With my graceful nature, it is best I do not carry a large mirror in the car, but using a mirror or reflective shield (the foldable sun shield in the car works) you can reflect light against the surface of a stone and hopefully make the lettering on a weathered stone appear with more definition in a photo.

• Spritzer - bottle of water to spritz the stone.  This can help to clean off dirt or tell-tale signs of visiting birds or, in some instances, the water on the stone surface sometimes brings out the stone color in the photo or brightens it.

I don't do restorations or repairs on stones.  My "job" is strictly to digitally record their images and carvings. Restorers have many other tools and skills in their kit.

The one thing I hadn't thought of needing, I did not even own that day.  I do now.  Unbeknownst to me, hunting season opened that day.  Not being a hunter of animals, I hadn't really been paying attention.   I should have been and it is important to pay attention when in "lost" cemeteries, tucked into places such as this one, where hunters are enjoying their time out as well.  I now own a lovely and extremely stylish BRIGHT ORANGE DON'T SHOOT ME I AM NOT A DEER vest to wear over my tan jacket.  

I am thankful that the hunters out that day were more aware than I was. 

Those Murderous Trees!!

Early on in my blog writing about cemeteries I wrote of Thomas Lynch who was killed by a tree at a young age.  Since then I have come across another young man murdered by tree.  The environment is a dangerous place, more so in the 1800's.

In Memory of

Mr.

HENRY BALLARD.

who was killed instantly

in felling a tree

Jan. 12. 1830.

AEt. 36

"There was but a step between me & death"

"Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the

day nor the hour, when the son of man

cometh"

I think I like the older cemeteries because you get this sort of anecdotal information more often.   In the times before information was so easy to find, you documented where you could.  And what better place than on your headstone. 

Finding a Grave

I've been away for a couple of months.  Usually I can't keep myself from writing something but it's been a slightly stressful time and I've been working.  I did take some time to do some volunteer cataloging of cemeteries for Findagrave.com.  I started doing some volunteer photo requests made by people doing genealogy on that site for cemeteries local to me.  In doing this I discovered that I could actually add and manage what they call "Memorials". 

The Cemetery in Warren that I wrote about previously  That's The Rest of the Story...So Far had only one memorial entered until I had entered the Cobleigh monument.  I decided, oddly enough on a fairly damp and drizzly day, I wanted every person in that cemetery to be remembered. (I have issues with being "forgotten" myself, so I assume others should be remembered.). I drove out and I did something I don't generally do.  Instead of wandering and photographing here and there, I examined the layout and started in what I felt was a logical point and took two to three pictures of every single headstone one by one, row by row. 

Then once home and dried off, I went through them and added all the information I could gather and that was readable from the headstones and entered it onto their upload template.  After the upload, I went through and edited and added an image, or in many cases two images, to each listing and linked up husbands and wives, parents and children - if I was absolutely certain.  When I was done I  had added approximately 120 memorials. 

I have gone on since then to do two very small cemeteries in Oakham, Massachusetts - Southwest Cemetery on Lincoln Road (131 memorials - there is one more that is a broken puzzle, I need to see if I can photograph each piece and Photoshop them together to read the names and dates); and Green Hollow on Crawford Road.  Green Hollow happened to have one memorial entered by a family member requesting a photo.  He got a photo and there are now an additional 55 memorials.   I am not terribly interested in the recent dead - and I assume the newer town cemeteries are well documented.  It is those 1700 and early 1800 ones that I am drawn to.

People don't understand why I would do something like this for free.  For me, it fulfills a need I have to do something with a clear start and finish - most of my work does not have that.  And I get to seek out and find all sorts of interesting little cemeteries in beautiful rural locations.  And someone...me...is taking a moment or two to remember each one of those people.  Mothers, Fathers, brothers, sisters, babies, unnamed infants, soldiers. 

Oddly, I don't want a grave or a headstone.  But I want every single one of the people in these to know they are remembered.  I found a small town not far off with 16 little cemeteries, most not cataloged. 16!!!  I am going to go out and shoot four or five at a time. 

East West Which is Best

I went to the Quaker Cemetery in Leicester, Massachusetts today.  It's also known as Spiders Gate or Spider Gates Cemetery because of the iron work gates at the entrance.  I am posting only that picture as there is a request not to post photos of the headstones on the internet.

 

I think they look more like rays of sunshine than a spider's web to be honest.   

The cemetery was as hard to find as I had read, but then for a road not to be labeled in Massachusetts is more the norm than the exception.  There are loads of stories about this cemetery, many a bit sensational.  I had not been to a Quaker cemetery before.  Like other cemeteries of its age, it had large numbers of a few family names - the Earle's, Southwick's, Potter's.  There were a couple things that got me thinking. 

The first thing about this cemetery was that probably 95% of the headstones were identical in size, shape, cut of stone.  They ranged from the mid 1700's to 2009 and yet effort was clearly made to make them as identical and equal as possible.  No one more important than anyone else, it seemed.  That was most likely the Quaker influence.

This cemetery is fairly square in layout with a strong stone fence surrounding.  If, as you stepped in through the spidery gate, you looked to the half to your left, those on the East side.. all of the stones appear to face West.  And looking to the right or West side,  they all appear to face East.  And in the middle of the cemetery is an area within a circle of pines that has an almost ceremonial platform feel.  Perhaps services were held there?  That would make the directions the stones faced seem logical.

I've noticed the tendency for headstones to face a certain direction in most cemeteries. And I've read various articles on why, preparation for the resurrection being the most common reason for feet to be to the the east and the head to the west end, so that a person could sit up at the time of the coming facing the sun.  There are always exceptions to this rule.  I think in modern cemeteries there is more a tendency to face the "streets" in the cemetery so that it is easy to see from the car as you drive by, or face the "view" of the plot, a pond, lake or skyline. 

The thing about this that I found thought provoking today (and once long ago at a mound cemetery in Ohio) is that it was so obvious there was a system, how do you explain the one or, in this case, two exceptions.  A husband and wife,  Charles W. Howe (1821 - 1908) and Mary Anthony Howe (1827 - 1923), found off to the rear on the West side of the grounds, face the perimeter wall.  They face the "wrong" direction according to the system.  Why? 

Their dates don't make them the first interments to the cemetery or the last.  They fall somewhere in the middle after the pattern was established.  There were others near them facing the "correct" direction.  And no obvious earthen based issues that would create the need to flip them.  Was the stone fence added recently?  It doesn't seem so.  I imagine she was simply added facing the same way as he, because she was his widow.

Was there something about them or their lives that created this need to turn the rest of their community's backs on them in perpetuity?  Certainly that would be forgiven in their faith at the time of death?   It just makes me wonder.  

(note to self - later discuss the headstone, footstone practice -  gives the grave the look of a bed, with a headboard and a smaller similar cut footboard, most of which go missing.)

Sinking in

Driving north on Charnock Hill Road in Rutland, Mass, you find yourself on a narrow street lined by tall pine trees so closely seeded by nature as to give you the feel you are driving down a hallway.  Houses to the right, conservation land to the left, the dipping sun narrowly filtering through the trees.  About a mile and a half up the road, on the left you'll see a set of four stone steps that lead to a little rise where Goose Hill Cemetery is. 

The ground is sinking in a uniform patter across the burial area.  Sinking in where pine boxes below have deteriorated and collapsed in on their residents and in turn the ground above them has started to sink down around their bones.  You see this sinking in and you know what it means as you step carefully through the mossy ground cover.   It is just distracting enough that if you aren't paying attention and your next step suddenly sinks down deeply into the moss, it can be startling.  Not to worry, no hands are grabbing your ankles to pull you in.  It's simply layers and layers of soft moss.  Small pine trees have self seeded themselves in the moss all over the area.

Recently I was thinking about what happens when a husband goes first or a wife goes first.  Which leads to a bigger headstone purchase, which leads to a more decorative stone purchase.  Above is a stone for Joseph Smith and three of his wives....they all went before he did.  I'm sure this just replaced their individual headstones, right?

Nearby is the stone of Calvin Smith who died at Plattsburg, NY, War of 1812, says the stone.  My high school history classes having been a long time ago and the War of 1812 even further back.  I had to look up to see how Plattsburg played its role. 

Turns out the battle at Plattsburg, also known as the Battle of Lake Champlain, was fought September 11, 1814.  So it is most likely he died two years after the date on the stone.  We've seen stones before where the carver has run out of space and as you can see in the images of this one, that there is limited space, especially when a stone is shared with others as this one is. Calvin would have been 28 when he died, if we use the date of the battle as his date of death.

On through the moss, is the grave of a younger man, just ten years and seven months old.  A finger points the way to heaven underneath the words "Loved and Early Called".  Clarence E. Birge, son of Ezra and Louisa L. Birge, died at Barre (say it Bear-ee) Nov. 12, 1865.  According to death records he died of typhoid fever.  According to the census records, at the time of his death, he would have had two younger sisters, Stella (approx. 5) and Ella (approx. 2).  In 1870, the family was living in Gardner, MA (north of his burial location in Rutland or the location in which his home states he died, Barre, MA.

This burial ground has some of the most severe lichen damage I've seen on stones.  Many fallen stones are being overcome by the mosses and appear to be pulled down into the ground with their namesakes. Damage to trees from recent year's storms is evident.  Large branches embrace some of the stones.

There were many many unreadable stones, but family names that are evident are Stone, Strong, Chickering, and Green.

Yet another aged lawyer....why do they live so long?

"An honest man is the noblest work of God."  It reads.

Lovewell (aka Nightingale) Cemetery

As I was speeding down Route 68 one day last week, going a little too fast and being tailgated by someone who wanted me to go faster, I spied a tiny cemetery off to my right.  I couldn't stop for fear of causing an accident so I made note to myself to look it up on the map when I got home.  The map said it was called "Nightingale Cemetery" which I thought sounded beautiful.   Just before going I was looking online at a list of cemeteries in Hubbardston and Nightingale was not listed.  Others were, including "Lovewell", which as it turns out, is the also known as for Nightingale Cemetery. 

I stopped a few days later.  The sign is gone, just two white posts standing near each other.  There is an aged white gate blocking entrance from vehicles since it is such a small cemetery and the typical New England stone wall around the edge.

The cemetery is inhabited by the Lovewells, Phillips, Freemans, Allens and others.  Even a couple of Underwoods (who are likely related to my earlier blog family, the Cobleighs).   There is the Deacon Allen family including his wife and his "consort".  Their daughters did not seem to live long, but their son lived to see 50.

The Lovewell Family Genealogy has been done extensively and there seems to be much online:  

This is from:  http://www.nh.searchroots.com/HillsboroughCo/Merrimack/familytrees7.html

"2. JOSEPH, born October 2, 1763; married in Templeton, April 10, 1796, Sarah Wilkinson, born, Needham, May 9, 1768, daughter of Ebenezer and Mary (Gay) Wilkinson. He removed to Hubbardston, Massachusetts. His descendants are numberous. He died November 21, 1814. She died August 29, 1847. Seven children."

What caught my eye about the Lovewell's was that the earliest stones in the burial ground were theirs and also the most recent from the later 20th Century.  I think that shows a strong connection running through the family that modern folks would want to be buried in an older (somewhat neglected) burial ground.  (It would be my choice, but then, I'm not so modern.)

Here are a few of the Lovewell Stones: 

Sarah Wilkenson, wife of Joseph Lovewell, 1767 to 1847

 Martha Lovewell, Died April 13, 1885, at the age of 63 years, 11 months and 7 days.

(every day important)

Joseph Lovewell, died Sept. 7, 1876  & his wife Jerusha, died Jan. 16, 1871  (both having lived into their seventies)

 Madeline Lovewell Freeman, daughter of Roger & Edith W. Lovewell, born Sept 3, 1926  (pre-need monument placement)

 Mildred Willis, daughter of Willis & Mattie Lovewell, died Feb. 8, 1971. (in keeping with the earlier tradition of counting days, she was 74 years, 9 days.

 The Lovewell family is primarily to the left side from front to back as you face the cemetery with some in the middle at the rear.  There are also some lovely slate stones here, with beautiful carvings and one in particular caught my eye.  Chandler Follett, died at the age of 20.  

His epitaph reads:  

"My very short and transcient stay

On Earth how soon it past away

My soul's Eternal fixed state

Is hid from you by solemn fate." 

Love well all.