ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: REFLECTIONS ON
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ABSTRACT Title of thesis: REFLECTIONS ON THE FUNERARY MONUMENTS AND BURYING GROUNDS OF EARLY NEW ENGLAND Jason David LaFountain, Master of Arts, 2004 Thesis directed by: Professor Sally M. Promey Department of Art History and Archaeolo gy This thesis comprises a considerable revision of the scholarship on the burying grounds and funerary monuments of early New England. It analyzes numerous objects and texts as yet unstudied in the literature on these topics, arguing for a cultural historical recontextualization of objects and spaces. My research pays attention to both the material realities and material imagination of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The themes of the paper include the following: the status of funerary monuments and burying ground meditations in the materially ambivalent Puritan milieu; the impulse to order as it relates to burying grounds as parcels of colonial landscape; the idea of the “good name”; the purifying “texts of self” that constitute the content of funerary monuments; and the pilgrimage, a prime metaphor for the Protestant life. The project stands between history and fiction, depending upon archival evidence and extensive primary documentation, on the one hand, and suspicious local histories and the playful propositions inherent of the interpretive enterprise, on the other. REFLECTIONS ON THE FUNERARY MONUMENTS AND BURYING GROUNDS OF EARLY NEW ENGLAND by Jason David LaFountain Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts 2004 Advisory Committee: Professor Sally M. Promey, Chair Professor Renée Ater Professor Joanne Pillsbury ©Copyright by Jason David LaFountain 2004 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the researching and writing of this thesis, I was fortunate to receive help from many people. It is only fitting to begin this, an essay dealing in part with the laudatory and v irtuous, by acknowledging the following individuals. My advisor Sally Promey encouraged me to undertake this project from its beginning and supported me in a variety of ways. She directed a seminar in American art in the fall of 2002 entitled “Readings in Colonial Visual and Material Culture,” introducing me to some of the most important literature on early New England culture. I have also twice provided her with research assistance. She has been a model of intellectual curiosity, freely sharing her passion for and knowledge of the history of American art and religion. I thank Renée Ater and Joanne Pillsbury, professors in whose courses I have learned a great deal, who were willing to devote their time and energy to be readers of my thesis. In the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, I also thank my unfailing conversation companions, Quint Gregory, Guy Jordan, Flora Vilches, Jonathan Walz, and Bryan Zygmont. During the summer of 2003, I presented some of my initial impress ions of this material at the Erasmus Institute summer seminar devoted to the theme “art history and religion.” I owe special thanks to Melanie Cornelisse, who through presentation of her own work and several conversations helped me to re -envision my topic. I benefited at the Erasmus seminar from discussions with Carlton Hughes and Albert Zambone, as well. At iii the University of Delaware, I thank Bernard Herman for his suggestions concerning the bibliography on colonial fencing practices. At the Old York Histo rical Society, I received considerable support from Cynthia Young -Gomes and Thomas Johnson. The staff of the American Antiquarian Society was helpful during my several visits there —Georgia Barnhill was particularly supportive. Nancy Finlay assisted me nume rous times with inquiries related to the print collection of the Connecticut Historical Society. Erin McGough generously mailed me materials from the files in the Concord Museum. Gwenda Malnati has been munificent in sharing her knowledge concerning, mater ials associated with, and family photographs of wolf stones. My own family and friends, who have lived with this project for three years, have been patient and curious, offering their time, suggestions, and insights into my research and writing. They have also regularly accompanied me to many of the burying grounds about which I write here, helping me to locate the grounds themselves and stones I have hoped to photograph. I thank Michael LaFountain, Albert Pica, Cassie Witherbee, Jimmy Witherbee, and John Witherbee. I owe my concluding and most heartfelt thanks to Jane LaFountain and Carly Demopoulos, in whose company I have spent many days, come rain, snow, or darkness, in search of countless monuments and burying grounds. They might rightly have been else where all of those times. I thank them for their kindness and generosity. Without their good humor, for which I am especially grateful, such days would likely have been dull as tombs. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures v Chapter I: Introduction 1 On Reflection 13 Ambivalence and Material Practice 20 Chapter II: The Burying Ground as Colonial Landscape 33 To Fence, To Improve 35 Wolf Stones 50 Chapter III: The Exemplary Self 66 “Living Stones”/Edification 68 The Good Name 80 Early Biography 93 Chapter IV: The Pilgrim 120 Chapter V: Conclusion 137 Re -viewing Amos Doolittle’s A View of the Town of Concord 140 Figures 149 Appendix 150 Bibliography 157 Notes 176 v LIST OF FIGURES (Unless otherwise noted, all photos of funerary monuments, burying grounds, and milestones are by the author.) 1a. John Watson stone, 1699, Bradford, Massachusetts. 1b. John Watson stone (detail). 2a. Hopkins Gorton stone, 1725, Hartford, Connecticut. 2b. Hopkins Gorton stone (detail). 3a. Margarett Cumings stone, 1790, Billerica, Massachusetts. 3b. Margar ett Cumings stone (detail). 4a. Elizabeth Lambert stone, 1775, Wakefield, Massachusetts. Photo by Sally M. Promey. 4b. Elizabeth Lambert stone (detail). Photo by Sally M. Promey. 5. Samuel Moody stone, 1747, York, Maine. 6. Thomas Cecill, Portr ait of John Weever . Frontispiece to John Weever’s Ancient Fvnerall Monvments (London, 1631). 7a. James Wadsworth, Map of New Haven, 1748. Beinecke Library, Yale University. 7b. James Wadsworth, Map of New Haven (detail). 8. Tree growing through graves tone, Chester, Vermont. 9. Walter Palmer wolf stone, c. 1661, Stonington, Connecticut. Photo by Gwenda Gustafson Malnati, c. 1995. 10. Lt. Thomas Minor and Grace Palmer Minor wolf stone, 1690, Stonington, Connecticut. Photo by Dr. Roy or Eunice Thomas, c. 1920-1930. vi 11. Unidentified wolf stone, Stonington, Connecticut. Photo by Dr. Robert D. Miner, 1992. 12. Mary Nasson stones, 1774 and later, York, Maine. 13a. D.B. Harris, Drawing of village center, York, Maine, nineteenth century. Old York Historic al Society, York, Maine. 13b. D.B. Harris, Drawing of village center, York, Maine (detail). 13c. D.B. Harris, Drawing of village center, York, Maine (detail). 14. Old Burying Ground wall, York, Maine. 15. Bodystone [11] and coffin -stone [12] from Fred erick Burgess’s English Churchyard Memorials (London: Lutterworth Press, 1963). 16. J.B. stone, n.d., Plymouth, Massachusetts. 17. Thomas Kendel stone, n.d., Wakefield, Massachusetts. Photo by Sally M. Promey. 18. Vein -laced slate gravestones, Cambrid ge, Massachusetts. 19. Israel Smith stone, 1783, Glastonbury, Connecticut. 20. Josiah Baker stone, 1726, Lebanon, Connecticut. 21. Capt. John Brown stone, 1717, Wakefield, Massachusetts. Photo by Sally M. Promey. 22. Mary Lock and children stone, 1710, Lexington, Massachusetts. 23. William Wolcott stone, 1799, South Windsor, Connecticut. 24. Elizabeth Swift stone, 1677, Dorchester, Massachusetts. 25. Hannah Stower stone, 1698/9, Charlestown, Massachusetts. 26. William and Susannah Humphreys stone, 1813 and 1821, Dorchester, Massachusetts. 27a. William Reed and family tombstone, 1771, Lexington, Massachusetts. 27b. William Reed and family tombstone (detail). vii 28. Joseph Tilton stone, 1779, Hamilton, Massachusetts. 29. Abel and Svbmite tombstone, 1644 and 1648, Dorchester, Massachusetts. 30a. James Humfrey tombstone, 1686/1731, Dorchester, Massachusetts. 30b. James Humfrey tombstone (detail). 31. Samuel Sewall stone, 1769, York, Maine. 32. Thomas Bailey tombstone, 1688, Watertown, Massachusett s. 33. Lydia Bailey tombstone, 1691, Watertown, Massachusetts. 34a. Maj. Gen. Daniel Gookin tombstone, 1686/7, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 34b. Maj. Gen. Daniel Gookin tombstone (detail). 35. Hannah Bartlett stone, 1710, Plymouth, Massachusetts. 36. Abigail Manning stone, 1770, Scotland, Connecticut. 37. Hannah Moody stone, 1727/8, York, Maine. 38. Mary Holt stone, 1760, York, Maine. 39. Rebeckah Minott stone, 1734, Concord, Massachusetts. 40. Mary Minot stone, 1760, Concord, Massachusetts. 41. Abigail Brown stone, 1794, Concord, Massachusetts. 42. Eunice Storrs stone, 1779, Mansfield Center, Connecticut. 43. Mary Storrs stone, 1783, Mansfield Center, Connecticut. 44. Jonathan Lyman stone, 1792, Lebanon, Connecticut. 45. Samuel Allen stone, 1805, Columbia, Connecticut. 46. Rev. Thomas Brockway stone, 1807, Columbia, Connecticut. 47. John Atwood stone, 1754, Plymouth, Massachusetts. 48. Rachel Cotton stone, 1808, Plymouth, Massachusetts. viii 49. William Watson stone, 1815, Plymouth, Massachuset ts. 50. Frontispiece to John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (Boston, 1740). American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. 51. Elizabeth Watson stone, 1770, Hartford, Connecticut. 52a. Saint Bernard’s Vision, c. 1700/1750.