NEWPORT CEMETERIES.
"Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners,
ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's
profession."--SHAKSPEARE.
Assuming the looker-on to be free from all qualms on the subject of
grave-yard associations, I invite him to loiter with me awhile among the
tombstones of buried Newport. As we thread the streets of the town,
sign-boards or door-plates inform us who are the occupants; and in
pursuing the narrow paths of the burial-place, the tablets set up
denote, not only the final residences, but symbolize the dread of the
world's forgetfulness, of those who sleep there. The analogy might still
be pursued, as it was an old custom to inscribe the occupation and
birthplace upon a memorial stone. Here is one I found in the old ground
adjoining Rhode Island Cemetery:
Here lyeth the Body
of Roger Baster
Bachelor Block mackr
Aged 66 yeres He Dyed
23 Day of Aprel 1687
He was one of the Fi
rst Beginers of a Chv
rch of Christ obsrving ------
Of the 7th Day Sab
bath of THE LORD IN
NE AND BEGAN 23D IS 1671
The grave-yards are the first green spots. Dandelions, buttercups, and
daisies blossom earliest there. The almost imperceptible shading-off of
winter into spring is signaled by tufts of freshly springing grass on
the sunny side of a grave-stone; the birds build betimes among the
tree-branches of the cemetery. Your grave-maker is always a merry
fellow, who cares no more for carved cross-bones than for the clay-pipes
so artistically crossed in shop-windows.
[Illustration]
I found many stones dating from 1726 to 1800, but even these had become
much defaced by time. Where freestone slabs had been used, the
inscriptions were either illegible or quite obliterated. Some of the
older slate stones had been painted to protect them from the weather.
The city takes commendable care of the grounds; yet I could not help
thinking that a little money might be well spent in renewing the fading
inscriptions. Throughout the inclosure the pious chisel of some "Old
Mortality" is painfully in request.
In a retired part of the ground I found two horizontal slabs--one of
white, the other red, freestone--lying side by side over man and wife. I
transcribed the epitaph of the wife, as the more characteristic:
HERE LYETH THE BODY OF HARTE
GARDE THE WIFE OF IOHN GARDE
MERCHANT WHO DEPARTED THIS
THE 16 DAY OF SEPTEMBER AN
DOM 1660
AGED 55 YEARS.
Another slate stone contained the singular inscription given in the
engraving; and still another was lettered:
In Memory Of
Mrs. Elizabeth Lintu
rn widow for many
years a noted midwife
She departed this life
October 23d 1758
In the 63d year of her age.
In the old Common Burying-ground is the following plaint:
Here doth Simon Parrett lye
Whose wrongs did for justice cry
But none could haue
And now the Graue
Keeps him from Inivrie
Who Departed this life
The 23 Day of May 1718
Aged 84 years.
Farewell Street, by which you approach the principal cemetery of
Newport, is not ill-named. The ground, a generally level area, permits
the eye to roam over the whole region of graves. Glimpses of the bay and
of the islands dispersed so picturesquely about it harmonize with the
calm of the place. Sails drift noiselessly by, and the fragrance of
evergreens and of eglantine perfumes the air. There was breeze enough to
bring the strains of martial music from the fort even here.
It is stated, I know not how authoritatively, that the Hessians, whose
hospital was close at hand, defaced many stones here by altering the
inscriptions. Here is buried William Ellery,[292] one of the signers of
the Declaration. On the day of his death he rose as usual, dressed, and
seated himself in the old flag-bottomed chair which he had sat in for
more than half a century. Here he remained reading a volume of Cicero in
Latin until his physician, who had dropped in, perceived that he could
scarcely raise his eyelids to look at him. The doctor found his pulse
gone. After giving him a little wine and water, Dr. W---- told him his
pulse beat stronger. "Oh, yes, doctor, I have a charming pulse,"
expressing at the same time his conviction that his life was nearly
ended, and his thankfulness that he was to pass away free from sickness
or pain. He at last consented to be placed upright in bed, so that he
might continue reading. He died thus without attracting the notice of
his attendants, like a man who becomes drowsy and falls asleep, sitting
in the same posture, with the book under his chin. Here is also the tomb
of Governor Cranston, and the gray stone slab with typical skull and
cross-bones, on which is graven the name of William Jefferay, said to
have been one of Charles Stuart's judges. Among other specimens of
grave-yard literature is the inscription to Christopher Ellery: "The
Human Form respected for its honesty, and known for fifty-three years by
the appellation of Christopher Ellery, began to dissolve in the month of
February, 1789."
There is not so much quaintness in the epitaphs here as in the old
Puritan grave-yards of Boston and Salem; less even of stateliness, of
pomp, and of human pride than is usual. I missed the Latin, the
blazonry, and the sounding detail of public service so often seen spread
over every inch of crumbling old tombstones. The grotesque emblems of
skull, cross-bones, and hour-glass--bugbears to frighten
children--change in a generation or two to weeping-willows, urns, and
winged cherubs. These are in turn discarded for sculptured types of
angels, lambs, doves, and lilies; of broken columns and chaplets. This
departure from the horrible for the beautiful is not matter for regret.
In these symbols we get all the religion of the place, and Death is
robbed of half his repulsiveness.
[Illustration: PERRY'S MONUMENT.[293]]
On a grassy knoll in Rhode Island Cemetery the visitor sees the granite
obelisk, erected by the State to the memory of the victorious young
captain who, at twenty-seven, gained imperishable renown. Ardent,
chivalrous, and brave, Perry showed the true inspiration of battle in
taking his flag to a ship still able to fight. His laconic dispatch, "We
have met the enemy, and they are ours," is modestly exultant. The marble
tablet of the monument's east face has the words,
OLIVER HAZARD PERRY.
At the Age of Twenty-seven Years,
He Achieved
The Victory of Lake Erie,
September 10, 1813.
[Illustration: OLIVER HAZARD PERRY.]
Within the neat iron fence that surrounds the monument are also the
graves of Perry's widow, Elizabeth Champlin, and of his eldest son,
Christopher Grant Perry, with the fresher one of Rev. Francis Vinton,
whose wife was a daughter of the naval hero. From this spot the bay and
all ancient Newport are visible. Another monument in the cemetery is in
memory of General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, "dead on the field of honor."
A prevailing ingredient of Newport society in the olden days was,
doubtless, the Quaker element. As the religious asylum of New England,
it alike received Jew and Gentile, Quaker and Anabaptist, followers of
the Church of England and of Rome. Its complexion at the beginning of
the eighteenth century might be in harmony with religious freedom,
though little homogeneous; and although there was plenty of toleration,
its religious character has been vaunted overmuch. It commands a passing
thought that all these human components intermingling and assimilating
in the active duties of life, separate in death. Their burial must be
distinct.
[Illustration: FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE.]
The Quaker-meeting has contributed to our vocabulary a synonym for
dullness. Old England and New were in accord in persecuting the sect. It
is related of a number under sentence of banishment to America, that
soldiers from the Tower carried them on board the ships, the Friends
refusing to walk and the sailors to hoist them on board. In the year
1662 Hannah Wright came from Long Island, several hundred miles to the
"bloody town of Boston," into the court, and warned the magistrates to
spill no more innocent blood. They were at first abashed by the solemn
fervor of their accuser, until Rawson, the secretary, exclaimed, "What!
Shall we be baffled by such a one as this? Come, let us drink a dram."
The sufferings of the Friends in New England were heightened, no doubt,
by the zeal of some to embrace martyrdom, who, in giving way to the
promptings of religious fanaticism, outraged public decency, and shamed
the name of modesty in woman. Deborah Wilson went through the streets of
Salem naked as she came into the world, for which she was well whipped.
Two other Quaker women, says Mather, were whipped in Boston, "who came
as stark naked as ever they were born into our public assemblies." This
exhibition was meant to be a sign of religious nakedness in others; but
the Puritans preferred to consider it an offense against good morals,
and not a Godiva-like penance for the general sinfulness.[294]
[Illustration: GEORGE FOX.]
The Society of Friends is the youngest of the four surviving societies
which date from the Reformation, and is, without doubt, the sternest
protest against the ceremonial religion of Rome. George Fox, who
preached at Newport,[295] was the son of a Leicestershire weaver,
beginning his public assertion of religious sentiments at the age of
twenty-two. The pillory sometimes served him for a pulpit. He once
preached with such power to the populace that they rescued him "in a
tumultuous manner," setting a clergy-man who had been instrumental in
his punishment upon the same pillory.
Pagan superstition having originated most of the names bestowed by
custom on the days and months, the Friends ignore them, substituting in
their place "first day" and "first month," "second day" and "second
month" for those occurring at the beginning of our calendar. The Society
does not sanction appeals by its members to courts of law, but refers
disputes to arbitration, a practice well worthy imitation.
George Fox mentions in his "Journal" his interview in England with Simon
Bradstreet and Rev. John Norton, the agents whom Massachusetts had sent
over in answer to the command of Charles II. Says Fox, "We had several
discourses with them concerning their murdering our friends, but they
were ashamed to stand to their bloody actions. I asked Simon Bradstreet,
one of the New England magistrates, whether he had not an hand in
putting to death these four whom they hanged for being Quakers? He
confessed he had. I then demanded of him and his associates then present
if they acknowledged themselves subject to the laws of England? They
said they did. I then said by what law do you put our friends to death?
They answered, By the same law as the Jesuits were put to death in
England. I then asked if those Friends were Jesuits? They said nay.
Then, said I, ye have murdered them."[296]
The first Quakers came to Rhode Island in 1656. Roger Williams, in his
"George Fox digged out of his Burrowes," shows that tolerance did not go
so far with him as the Quaker fashion of wearing the hair long and
flowing. Speaking of one he met who accosted him with the salutation,
"Fear the Lord God," Williams says he retorted, "What God dost thou
mean--a ruffian's God?" Through Fox's preaching some of Cromwell's
soldiers became converted, and would not fight. He lies in the old
London burying-ground of Bunhill Fields, among the Dissenters.
The objection of the sect to sepulchral stones leaves little to be
remarked of the Quaker burying-ground in Newport.[297] Notwithstanding
the non-resistant principles of the Friends, it stands in strong light
that Nathaniel Greene, a Quaker, and Oliver Hazard Perry, the descendant
of a Quaker, were conspicuous figures in two of our wars. Few
innovations have appeared in the manners, customs, or dress of the
followers of George Fox.[298] Their broad-brims, sober garb, and sedate
carriage, their "thee" and "thou," may still occasionally be seen and
heard in Newport streets.
Newport contains several widely scattered burial-places, some of them
hardly more in appearance than family groups of graves. Not all exhibit
the care bestowed upon such as are more prominently before the public
eye. The little Clifton cemetery, at the head of Golden Hill Street, was
in a wretched plight. A crazy wooden paling afforded little or no
protection from intrusion. But there was no incentive to linger among
its few corroded monuments and accumulated rubbish. Here are buried the
Wantons, of whom Edward, the ancestor of the name in Newport, fled from
Scituate, Massachusetts, during the Quaker persecutions.
[Illustration: CHARLES LEE.]
When Washington was at Cambridge, besieging Boston, he sent Charles Lee
to look after "those of Rhode Island" who were still for King George.
Lee administered to the Tories who would take it an oath as whimsical as
characteristic. He knew the fondness of these old royalists for old
wine, good dinners, and fine raiment. They were required to swear
fidelity to the Whig cause "by their hope of present ease and comfort,
as well as the dread hereafter." Colonel Wanton refused the oath, and
was, I presume, of those whom Lee had taken to Providence with the
threat of forwarding them to the American camp.
Another isolated field of graves is that usually called the Coddington
burial-ground, containing the remains of Governor Coddington and
kindred. A stone erected on the second centennial anniversary of the
settlement of Newport, compresses in a few lines the chief events of his
history:
"To the memory of William Coddington, Esq., that illustrious man who
first purchased this island from the Narraganset sachems, Canonicus and
Miantonimo, for and on account of himself and seventeen others, his
associates in the purchase and settlement. He presided many years as
Chief Magistrate of the Island and Colony of Rhode Island, and died,
much respected and lamented, November 1st, 1678, aged 78 years."[299]
Lechford, in his "Plain Dealing," relates a circumstance that has caused
some inquiry into the ecclesiastical polity of Coddington and his
associates. "There lately," he says, "they whipt one master Gorton, a
grave man, for denying their power, and abusing some of their
magistrates with uncivill tearmes; the governor, master Coddington,
saying in court, 'You that are for the king, lay hold on Gorton;' and he
again, on the other side, called forth, 'All you that are for the king,
lay hold on Coddington.' Whereupon Gorton was banished the island."
Gorton was the founder of Warwick, Rhode Island.
There is a little inclosure at the upper end of Thames Street in which
is a granite obelisk to the memory of John Coggeshall, president of the
plantations under their first patent. The name was originally Coxehall.
It is the same John Coggeshall briefly met with in the trial scene, to
whom a lineal descendant has raised this monument.
Other burial-places may be enumerated, but that lying in the shadow of
Trinity Church is probably first to challenge the attention of such as
seek to read the annals of the past on memorial stones. The church
steeple, with gilded crown on the pinnacle--how these churchmen love the
old emblems!--was in full view from my window, slender and graceful, the
gilded vane flashing in the morning sun, itself a monument of its
ancient flock below.
Here are the names of Hunter, of Kay, of Honyman, and of Malbone: all
are to be met with in Newport streets or annals. The presence of foreign
armies on the isle is emphasized by the burial of French and British
officers in this church-yard. A few family escutcheons designate the
ancient adherence to the dogma that all men were not created politically
free and equal. One of the unaccustomed objects the stranger sees in
peering through the railings of these old church-yards is the blazonry
of which the possessors were once so proud, and which is now carried
with them to their graves. In cavities where leaden coats of arms have
once been imbedded are little basins to catch the rain, where careless
sparrows drink and take their morning baths, twittering and chirruping
among the homesteads of the dead.
Stuart, who was fond of rambling through the old grave-yards, reading
the inscriptions, went to Trinity. He mentions his pew, and the
sweetness of the organ, the gift of Berkeley. The painter had a
Scotsman's inordinate fondness for snuff, and would be most naturally
drawn with palette in one hand and a huge pinch of snuff in the other. A
resident of the same street once told me that when Stuart's table-cloth
was shaken out at the window the whole street sneezed. He was a good
talker and listener, though crabbed and eccentric to a degree.
I venture to contribute to the already portentous number the following
anecdote of Stuart: Dining one day at the house of Josiah Quincy, his
attention was attracted by an engraving of West's "Battle of the Boyne."
"Ah!" said Stuart, "I was studying with West when he was at work on that
picture, and had to lie for hours on the floor, dressed in armor, for
him to paint me in the foreground as the Duke of Schomberg. At last West
said, 'Are you dead, Stuart?' 'Only half, sir,' was my reply; and my
answer was true; for the stiffness of the armor almost deprived me of
sensation. Then I had to sit for hours on a horse belonging to King
George, to represent King William. After the painting was finished, an
Irishman who saw it observed to West, 'You have the battle-ground there
correct enough, but where is the monument? I was in Ireland the other
day and saw it.' He expected to see a memorial of the battle in a
representation of its commencement."[300]
In the yard of the Congregational Church in Spring Street is a slate
grave-stone to the memory of Dr. Samuel Hopkins, settled as pastor of
the First Congregational Church of Newport, in 1770. At first his
sentiments were so little pleasing to his people that it was voted by
the church not to give him a call; but the doctor preached a farewell
sermon of such beauty and impressiveness that the vote was recalled, and
Hopkins consented to remain. The salient points of his character have
furnished the hero for Mrs. Stowe's "Minister's Wooing." The First
Congregational Church of Newport was established in 1720.
FOOTNOTES:
[292] William Ellery Channing, the pastor of "Old Federal Street,"
Boston, was one of the most gifted and eloquent men the American pulpit
has produced. His mother was the old signer's daughter.
[293] The other faces of Commodore Perry's monument recite his age,
birthplace, etc. He was born at South Kingston in 1785, and died at Port
Spain, Trinidad, 1819. According to a resolve of Congress his remains
were conveyed, in 1826, in an armed vessel to the United States.
[294] When appealed to by the United Colonies in 1657 to punish Quakers,
Rhode Island objected that no law of that colony sanctioned it. The
president, Benedict Arnold, however, replied that he (and the other
magistrates) conceived the Quaker doctrines tended to "very absolute
cutting down and overturning relations and civil government among men."
He urged as a measure of public policy that the Quakers should not be
molested, as they would not remain where the civil authority did not
persecute them. This has, in fact, been the history of this sect in New
England.--See Arnold's letter, Hutchinson, vol. i., appendix.
[295] George Fox was in Rhode Island in 1672. On arriving at Newport, he
went to the house of Nicholas Easton, who was then governor, and
remained there during his sojourn. A yearly meeting of all the Friends
in New England was held while he remained in Newport.--"George Fox his
Journal," London, 1709.
[296] Josselyn mentions the sect: "Narraganset Bay, within which bay is
Rhode Island, a harbor for the Shunamitish Brethren, as the saints
errant, the Quakers, who are rather to be esteemed vagabonds than
religious persons." He also attributes to them dealings in witchcraft.
Whittier, the Quaker poet, has depicted in stirring verse the
persecutions of this people. Cassandra Southwick is from real life.
[297] Stones giving simply the name and date of decease are now allowed.
[298] In 1708 M. de Subercase solicited of his Government the means of
attempting an enterprise against the island of Rhode Island. He says,
"Cette isle est habitee par des Coakers qui sent tous gens riches."
[299] Here also is the grave of Governor Henry Bull, who died in 1693,
and whose ancient stone house is now standing in Spring, near Sherman
Street.
[300] Stuart was in Boston at the time of the battle of Lexington, and
managed to escape a few days after Bunker Hill. His obituary in the
Boston _Daily Advertiser_, a very noble tribute from one man of genius
to another, was written by Allston.
[Illustration: MOUNT HOPE.]