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Home , Helmet (heraldry)

Heraldic Design on New England Gravestones

By LOYD GROSSMAN

ORN of war and tournament in in America twelfth-century Europe, her- The spread of heraldry to America B aldry was predominantly utili- dates from the seventeenth century tarian from its beginnings. This does not when Englishmen came here to settle. imply that decorative allusive con- They took their heraldry with them as siderations had no place in early medieval the family often decorated heraldry but only stressesthat heraldry their possessions.While the Puritans did was first used to identify similarly ar- not actively discourage heraldic display mored in combat, much as mod- (Cromwell had a coat of arms of which ern armies use shoulder patchesto identify he was particularly proud), it was not soldiers today. It was not long before until after the Restoration that heraldry heraldry was recognized for numerous achieved any considerable popularity in nonwarlike though still practical uses New England. First used mostly for and could serve to identify an individual’s funeral hatchments, coats of arms soon home, land holdings, or assent to a legal appeared on gravestones, silverware, and claim. As heraldry proliferated and its bookplates. Because the authority of the use became manifold, even greater in- was not held in particularly high genuity was required for designing coats regard in those days and since New En- of arms; for it was early establishedthat gland was a long way from home, the no two individuals within the same juris- colonists had to rely on articles brought diction should the same arms. in passageby them (or their families) or With advances in literacy and a de- on textbooks, of which the most popular cline in the use of armored suits, heraldry were those by John Guillim (I 724) and became less utilitarian as its purely deco- Alexander Nisbet ( I 7 IS), as sourcesof rative aspectswere explored. More com- heraldic design. Once the blason of a coat plex and delicate coats of arms became was found, artists were able to use con- popular during the Tudor period, result- siderable freedom in the presentation of ing in a tremendous demand. By the the design. While a good number of mid-seventeenth century heraldry was “ painters” are known to have well on its way to becoming a recognized lived in New England, it is doubtful affectation of gentility. With the cessa- whether most of them were engaged in tion of county visits by heralds (for the the painting of coats of arms on a full- purpose of recording lawful coats of time basis. Yet gravestones provide us arms) in the late seventeenth century and with some of the best visible evidence of growing indifference to the College of early American heraldic design. Arms by William III and his Hanover I have not attempted to make an ex- successors, was weak- haustive study of heraldry on grave- ened and pandemonium ensued. More- stones, but instead have tried to make over, a number of popular textbooks some general and specific comments on helped turn heraldry into a fanciful pur- early American heraldic design based on suit. some thirteen examples dating from 55 FIG. I. MARY ROUS, CHARLESTOWN, MASS., 17 I + Courtesy of Dr. Allan I. Ludwig. Heraldic Design on New England Gravestones

1691 to 1810. As my drawing skill ornate, it is a very fine piece of work and leaves something to be desired, I have not wonderfully conveys a sense of elegance attempted to illustrate them here though and aristocratic pride. photographs of most may be found in Fig. 2 : The James Foster stone (Dor- Harriette M. Forbes’s Grawestones of chester, 1732) was either carved by the Early New England ( 1927). It is curi- stonecutter himself as his own marker ous that none of the authorities on Amer- prior to death or by his son James. The ican gravestones have paid much atten- coat of arms representsan interesting ex- tion to heraldry. There is but passing ample of provincial carving: the shield is mention of coatsof arms in Forbes’s book much too square and, while the and no mention at all in Ludwig’s and hunting horns are well executed, the Thirteen gravestones listed here in lions appear cramped due to the small chronological deserve especial at- portion of the shield on which they have tention: John Grosvenor stone (1691), been aligned. The is well carved Roxbury; John Howell stone ( 1696), but fails to convey the strength that a Southampton, N. Y. ; Richard Hawley piece of armor should have. The is stone ( 1698), Marblehead; John Fowle a foreshortened arm vambraced and em- stone ( I 7 I I ), Charlestown ; Elizabeth bowed, clutching what appears to be a Pain stone ( I 704), Boston; Mary Rous twig or possiblya chisel rather than what stone ( I 7 I 4)) Charlestown; Sarah Har- should be a lance. The relief carving of ris stone ( I 723)) Providence ; James the overwhelms the shield and Foster stone ( I 732), Dorchester; Wil- a blank scroll begs a reason for in- liam Clark stone ( I 743), Boston ; Jo- clusion. Overall, this is the seph Reynolds stone (1759), Bristol, product of provincial heraldry and yet a R. I.; James Barrett stone (1778), high degree of carving skill. Concord; Jean Paul Mascarene stone (1796), Boston; and a stone marked COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS “Lyde” ( I 8 I o), Boston. Space does not permit a description of each, but two I) The Shield and its Evolution stones merit particular attention. The shield is the one indispensableele- Fig. I : The very ornate stone belong- ment in a coat of arms. One can have ing to Mary Rous (Charlestown, I 7 14) a coat of arms with only a shield, but one was carved by Nathaniel Lamson, a son cannot have a coat of arms with every- of Joseph Lamson, carver of the John thing (helmet, , etc.) but the shield. Fowle gravestone. The achievement is The shield may be said to define and give here presented within a diamond-shaped order to the coat of arms. The most frame and is well balanced. The shield common medieval shield and the most is boldly and ornately carved and is quite pleasing was the “heater” type which re- elegant. The ornate helmet is large and sembles an inverted equilateral triangle well proportioned and the crest of flames with convex sides.This shapeor a variant is finely executed. The mantling is quite of it was used on the earliest American properly shown as being held to the hel- gravestones, but soon colonists began to met by and beneath the torse, and, as adopt the English taste for increasingly was the fashion of the time, it is very elaborate shields. It can be seen that with reminiscent of seaweed. Although very time the shields become increasingly FIG. 2. JAMES FOSTER (DETAIL), DORCHESTER, MASS., 1732 Courtesy of Dr. Allan I. Ludwig. Heraldic Design on New England Gravestones complex and baroque. By the late eigh- century New England, as in England, teenth century most people were familiar heraldry was becoming increasingly styl- with only the highly stylized shields of ized and fanciful; in general, heraldry the time. was loosing much of its strength and flamboyance. There seemed to be an 2) The Helmet and Mantling ever widening gap between heraldic art Few of the seen on the grave- and heraldic science. The frequent oc- stones are at all like an actual helmet. currence of blank motto scrolls may serve They are much too fancy and their as an example. Every artist who was shapes would make them impossible to aware of heraldic fashion knew that a wear. The mantling also little re- “proper” coat of arms had a motto scroll, semblance to the real thing (which was so, that even when he did not know the after all only a cloth to protect the back motto, the artist often retained the scroll of the head from the sun) and is fantasti- not realizing that a motto scroll with no cally vented and scalloped. motto is a bit of heraldic nonsense. Apart from a few provincialisms, such as 3) Sources of the Arms charges facing the wrong way, and no While Guillim’s Display of Heraldry doubt such provincialisms were also to be and Nisbet’s A System of Heraldry were found in England, American heraldic the two most popular heraldry books of design in the eighteenth century com- the early eighteenth century, only one of pared quite favorably with English prac- the gravestones examined (that of Mary tice. Rous) owed its design to either of these One special problem that is worth books. None of the other coats were to be mentioning, as both English and Ameri- found in these or other contemporary cans shared it, was the difficulty of draw- books on heraldry. I doubt that any of ing a good . The lion is among the the arms were pure inventions as nearly most important charges in heraldry, re- all of them can be found in Burke’s quiring not an accurate portrait of the General Armory (1884 ed.). Most of beast but rather a highly stylized repre- the arms then must have been derived sentation conveying all the attributes of from either family documents or armori- the lion. Most eighteenth-century heral- ally marked family possessions brought dic lions are very meek and pudgy look- from England. ing creatures and for some reason New England lions are very hairy. Among the 4) Heraldic Design on New England best eighteenth-century lions is the crest Gravestones on the James Barrett gravestone in In general the practice of heraldry in Concord. It is indeed strange that only a eighteenth-century New England was few artists succeeded in solving the “lion fairly contemporary in style to heraldry problem.” in England. It is most likely that the One fascinating aspect of heraldic art several heraldry books published in En- is that it forces the artist to work within gland found their way across the Atlantic a tightly circumscribed area using for the and also that recent arrivals from En- most part already refined and conven- gland kept the colonists informed of cur- tionalized forms. In such art even the rent heraldic fashion. In eighteenth- smallest subtleties are of great impor- 60 Old-Time New England tance. When the difficulty of working in stones I am not struck so much by the so resistant a medium as stone is also ingenuity and skill displayed by these taken into consideration, it is greatly to often nameless craftsmen as I am by the the credit of New England stonecutters very fact that such monuments to gen- that they were so often able to create tility should have been so painstakingly successful designs. Yet when thinking carved on what was then the edge of a about the heraldic art on these grave- rugged frontier.

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