Morning journal and courier., 1889-03-07
NORTH HAVEN CEMETERY.

NORTH HAVEN CEMETERY. An Ancient City of the Dead-Head- |
 stones Dating Back In old Colonial
 Days-Iateresting Inscrfptions-Old
 Time Customs-The Sandstone mon-
 ument Kra-Hlstorical Hints.
 The oldest recorded date in the old North Haven cemetery is 1723. The stone @ (slate) bearing this memorandum marks the burial place of Joel, son of Joseph Cooper, who died at the age of five and was proba- bly the first person buried in the tract of land given to the inhabitants of the North Village by Rev. James Pierpont in 1714. The last interment there was Elvira Cooper in 1882. It is singular coincidence that this huge volume, as it were, with it's stone and marble leaves containing the record of one hundred and sixty years should begin and end with the same family name. And yet this same record how imperfect. These stained, defaced, moss-grown and crumb-' ling pages tell but part of the genesis and history of this New England town, for pre-. vious to 1900 not more than three-fourths of tha burials there were marked by a stone. Church, town and private records alike cons tain names by scores of whom, with every probability, it may be said, their owners died on their native soil and were buried in it, and yet no memorial was ever erected to mark their resting place. Sometimes that of the wife is missing, sometimes that of the husband; occasionally the absence of the tokens of both is noticed, and yet we know they lived and died in and about their homes. Such omissions reveal, perhaps, possibly penuriousness, carelessness of ad- ministrators of estates, and by no means the least, the straitened circumstances of many a 0T11v va6 If
 Of the ancient sandstones in this cemetery there are three distinct types of cutting. From 1723 to about 1750 the scu1ptors' con- ception and execution of the winged head with which most of the stones are decorated was hideous and revolting. The head is verftsble deaths head, heshless aud sight, less; the neck ia unduly prolonged, and the wings coarse ribbed, stiff and clumsy. Es- peeially notable instances of this style occur on the stones of Moses Blakeslee, 1726; Si- mon Futile, 1725: Mary Gilberd, 1755; Sarah Clark, Josiah Todd, and others. The designs of the border traceries even show the same hard forhidding taste, and we no longer doubt the austerity of the theology of that day. 'Foot stones" were not common in the early part of the period. Nathaniel Thorp in 1725 had the first and only one of the six persons buried that year; whether this was due to the fact that few years before 1718) Che was hired to take care of the meet
 
 was possessed of more means than his neigh. bors we do not know. The custom grew very slow. Not more than one year on an average was set up for quite 8 period, and these were placed fully eight to ten feet in the rear of the headstone. It was during this time the first epitaph was recorded on the stone erected for MT. Moses Clark. "He dyed Aug. ye 21st, 1756, in ye 31st year of his age"
 Reder, stop your space 6 stay & harken unto what say. Our lives but cobwebs tho near gay And death ye broum ye sweeps away. His wife Dinah survived him and his epi- tsph fifteen years and "dyed Oct. ye 2d, 1751." That. she regarded her station in life of signal importance, or that her friends did, is shown by the twice-repeated declara- ton that she was ';once the wife of Mr. Moses Clark" both on her head and foot stone, the only instance of the kind in the cemetery. Not content with this assevers- ! ton she is further made to say: On this gravestone my name is red; You are alive, but am dead. Tn short space of preacious time Theay will read your name as we'll mine. The second period of cutting, for the sake of definition, occurs between 1750 and 1900. Most of the stones erected between these years were quarried in MiddleEeld, Conn. They were brought down in winter on sleds by one named Miller, and kept in stock to
 
 the cemetery. Here was his 'tyard," and here doubtless if the sward is ever turned will be found the stone "chips" of his trade. Miller was an artist. His cutting is as dis tinct from his predecessor as is his marking of the sky from the hills. His faces are round. The neck is much shortened, and later in his work entirely disappears. The poise and sweep of the wings freer. The outline of the eye, the nose, the mouth, is shapely defined, and on some of his best cut tings these lines are so singularly drawn as to convey something of that peculiar sphinx like gaze common to the old winged faces of the Egyptians, which might have been his ! models. His "borders" are tasty and orna- mental, showing variety of design and con- siderable knowledge of scroll work. His let tering in the main is accurate. All things considered, MilIer's masterpieces of work manship are the stones of Joel and Merium Bradley, who died respectively in 1797 and 1902. On the former is written: Let friends and neighbors drop a tear On my dry, hfeess bones and say These once were strong as ours now are And ours must shortly be as they. On the latter, which has something of a Shakspearan flavor in the opening lines, is written:
 Rob me not of this little foot. That may rest my wearied bones And be forever blest.
 Overlapping this same period occurs the third order of cutting, but by whom un- known. This style is characterized by the winged head in the others, but with less ex- precision. The pinions rising stiay by the face suggest immense ears which suggest the grotesque. Less care is taken in border and ! letter cutting and the whole appearance crude and inartistic.
 The introduction of marble for memorial purposes about the year 1900, checked the | sand stone traffic. None appears after this 1aka 4I. 4.ekI .1 came new designers into the field, and winged heads and other designs gave way to dropping and broken willows, shading inn possible urns, conception less pagan in out line, but more objectionable in character for whereas the winged emblem was @ symbol of spirit and immortality, the willow made more prominent the mourner than the mourned for. The substitution was an un- happy one. It prevailed till about 1840 and then glorifed itself by its death. From 1750 to about 1920 it may be said the epitaph ran riot here, for scarcely 6 stone but bears one. Saint and sinner alike invoked the chisels aid to perpetuate often sentiments and the wonder and puzzle of men and angels. What ever of evolution appears in the transition from slate to sand stone, sand stone to mar ble and marble to granite, or in the gradual abolition of horid and uncouth imagery, the same cannot be said of the average epitaph. Pagan Greece and Rome furnished better anu IIu0E L1U6LT&L1OQS TWO LOOQSanO8 years ago than can be found as a rule in any mo dern cemetery today. For instance, witness this on Abel Bassett's stone, who died in 1762:
 Come, my companions, come and Eee These are ye clods that cover me.
 At my right hand there you may view The clods that soon will cover you.
 "Mrs. Mary, the virtuous and ameable con- sort of Mir. Solomon Sackitt," is made to say in 17S4:
 The tender mother here doth lie
 And left babe in infancy The husband may lament his fate,
 But she has gained a better state.
 Mrs. Lydia Sackett also announces in 1909: Af1ietions sore long time bore,
 Physicians were in vain;
 Death gave me ease when God was pleased
 To ease me of my pain.
 MT. Dan Todd died in 1895 and the fol- lowing startling assertion is made by his rel atives:
 When with age the head is silvered OCT Man sleeps in death; his lungs shall beat more. Philo Blakeslee in 1899 publishes this very pessimistic view of his life: My father and my mother gone, was an orphan left alone
 lived at poor dying rate, Come now, my friend, and learn my fate With but single illustration more from