CHRIST CHURCHYARD
When in 1856 Frederick A. Lee and Dorr Russell formed the Lakewood
Cemetery Association, and purchased the beautiful tract that lies along
the hill on the east side of the lake, a half-mile from the village, the
older burying-grounds within the town began gradually to be disused.
Christ churchyard, which contains the oldest graves of the original
settlement, has long since ceased to be used for burials, beyond those
occasionally permitted, for special reasons, by act of the Vestry of the
parish. This disuse has secured to the churchyard the right to grow old
gracefully, without the too frequent intrusion of recent death, and to
acquire the picturesque charm of antiquity which in cemeteries seems to
dispel all the terrors of mortality.
The love of old burial-grounds belongs to a distinct type of mind and
temperament. To some minds all cemeteries are equally devoid of
interest. Among visitors in Christ churchyard, of whom there are
thousands during every summer, the classification of sightseers is
automatic. Some glance at Cooper's grave, peep into the church to
glimpse the memorials of the novelist, and hurry away with an air of
duty done. The lovers of churchyards linger, and stroll thoughtfully
among the tombs. They find a charm in the most obscure memorials of the
dead. They read aloud to each other the quaint inscriptions. Now and
again they pause, note-book in hand, to copy some chiseled epitaph that
strikes the fancy. They kneel or lie prone upon the turf before a
crumbling tomb to decipher its doleful couplets, thrusting aside the
concealing grasses, lest a word be missed. They wander here and there
beneath the shadow of the venerable elms and pines, and, before
departing, enter the old church, to rest and pray within the stillness
of its fane.
[Illustration: _Alice Choate_
A GLIMPSE FROM THE RECTORY]
Aside from the part of the churchyard reserved for the burials of the
Cooper family, the only enclosed plot is the small one just south of it,
squared in by a low fence of rusty iron. This belonged to the family of
the Rev. Frederick T. Tiffany, who succeeded Father Nash as rector of
Christ Church, and afterward became a chaplain in Congress.
The oldest tomb in the churchyard holds an inconspicuous place two tiers
east of the Tiffany enclosure. It is the grave of Samuel Griffin, the
inn-keeper's child, who died at the Red Lion Tavern. The gravestone is
dated 1792, which is ancient for this part of the country.
In the first burials within these grounds, it was the intention to
regard the old Christian tradition in accord with which the dead are
buried with the feet toward the east. Yet, since the graves naturally
follow the parallel of the enclosure, which is not exactly east and
west, but conforms to the general bent of the village, they fall short,
by a few points of the compass, of facing due east.
Among the early settlers of Cooperstown there was one family not to be
put off with any vagueness of orientation. It was that of Joshua Starr,
a potter, whom Fenimore Cooper describes as "a respectable inhabitant of
the village." To the mind of Joshua Starr, who survived the other
members of his family, it was plain that if a proper grave should face
east, it should face the east, and not east by south. Accordingly, the
graves of the Starr family, a few steps northward from Samuel Griffin's,
are notable among the tombs of Christ churchyard in being set with the
foot due east, as by a mariner's compass. The wide headstones split the
plane of the meridian; their edges cleave the noonday sun and the polar
star. To the casual observer these three tombstones, as compared with
all others in the churchyard, seem quite awry. In reality they alone are
meticulously correct, a standing tribute to the exact eye of Joshua
Starr, the potter.
Southward from Samuel Griffin's grave, in the next tier to the east, a
curious use of verse appears upon two stones, whereby Capt. Joseph Jones
and his wife Keziah, both dying in 1799, seem to converse in responsive
couplets. Mrs. Jones avers, majestically,
Within this Silent grave I ly.
To which the hero of the Revolution quite meekly replies,
This space is all I occupy.
The crudeness of some epitaphs gives them a grotesque touch of realism.
Here is one just south of the squared-in Tiffany plot:
Mourn not since freed from
human ills,
My dearest friends & two
Infants still,
My consumptive pains God
semed well,
My soul to prepair with
him to dwell.
Northward of this tomb is a sarcophagus that shows a well laid plan in a
state of perpetual incompletion. Besides serving as a monument of the
dead, the tomb was intended to be a kind of family record. The names of
children and grandchildren were inscribed, and as they departed this
life their names were marked with a chiseled asterisk referring to a
foot-note which pronounced them "dead." Four deaths were so recorded;
then the sculptured enrollment was discontinued. Written still among the
living there remain four names, of those who have been long dead, while
the name of one born after the monument was erected, and survivor of all
the others, was never included in the memorial.
Near the orientated tombs of the Starrs the grave of an infant who died
in 1794 bears this epitaph:
Sleep on sweet babe; injoy thy rest:
God call'd the soon, he saw it best.
A more severe view of the Deity appears upon a gravestone six rows east
of this, commemorating James and Tamson Eaton, who died in 1846. Tamson
was fifteen years old, and, as the verse reveals, was a girl:
This youth cut down in all her bloom,
Sent by her God to an early doom
Tamson's brother James was killed by lightning a few months later, and
the event is thus versified:
What voice is that? 'Tis God,
He speaketh from the clouds;
In thunder is concealed the rod
That smites him to the ground.
Near the driveway and toward the church is the tombstone of Mary
Olendorf, which bears these feeling lines:
Tread softly o'er this sacred mound
For Mary lies beneath this ground
May garlands deck and myrtles rise
To guard the Tomb where Mary lies.
A short distance eastward from the centre of the churchyard, and nearly
abreast of the obelisk commemorating Father Nash, stands somewhat apart
the rugged tombstone of Scipio, an old slave. Aside from the graves of
Fenimore Cooper and his father, the founder of the village, not
forgetting the grave of Jenny York,[117] which is the joy of the
churchyard, no tomb in the enclosure receives more attention from
strangers than that of Scipio, with its quaint verses descriptive of the
aged slave.
North of this stone, after passing three intervening tombs, one comes
upon an odd inscription that marks the grave of a fourteen-year-old
boy, who was drowned December 3, 1810:
Thus were Parents bereavd
of a dutiful son and community
of a promising youth, while
pursuing with assiduity the
act of industry.
What this act of industry was that cost the life of young Garrett
Bissell is not related.
A number of those buried in Christ churchyard died violent deaths; one
was murdered, and another was hanged, but that story has been already
told.
"Joe Tom," a negro whose tomb fronts the east end of the churchyard,
where the members of his race were buried apart from the whites, was for
more than a score of years sexton of Christ Church, and when he died, in
1881, had been for a half a century a unique figure in the life of the
village. "Joe Tom" was always the general factotum at public
entertainments, and had won a title as "the politest negro in the
world." Music of a lively sort he scraped from the fiddle or beat upon
the triangle. He was head usher at meetings, chief cook at picnics, a
stentorian prompter at dances, and chief oar at lake excursions.
On one occasion there was to be a burial in the churchyard in the
afternoon, for which Joe had made no preparation before escorting a
picnic party to Three-Mile Point in the morning. Suddenly he remembered
the funeral. Seizing a boat he rowed hastily back to the village,
commenced digging the grave, tolled the bell, and, while the funeral
service was being held in the church, completed his task, standing ready
with solemn visage to perform the final duty of casting the earth upon
the coffin. He then went back to the Point, and finished the day by
escorting his party home. Not infrequently his day's work was protracted
far into the night. If there was a midnight country dance the tinkle of
his triangle could be heard until near sunrise, and often he was seen
returning by daylight from some nocturnal festivity, fast asleep in a
farmer's wagon.[118]
If his versatile life rendered him somewhat uncertain at times in the
discharge of his duties as sexton of Christ Church, he never failed to
disarm criticism by his plausible and polite excuses. In his day the
bell rope was operated from the vestibule of the church, and Joe Tom,
arrayed in Sunday finery, was a familiar figure to church-goers, as he
stood in the church porch tolling the bell with measured stroke, and
inclining his woolly head with each motion to the entrance of every
worshipper.
Joe was born in slavery in the island of Barbadoes, and was brought,
when quite young, to Cooperstown, by Joseph D. Husbands. Few persons in
his day were better known than Joe Tom, yet, in his latter years, ill
health withdrew him from public notice, and at his funeral he was laid
away in the churchyard, unsung, if not unwept. A contemporary expressed
a hope that the dead can have no knowledge of their own obsequies, for
"poor Joe, who was the very soul of music, would hardly have been
satisfied with a service in which not a key was struck, or note raised
for one who had so often tuned his harp for others."
[Illustration: THE COOPER PLOT, CHRIST CHURCHYARD]
Within the Cooper enclosure in Christ churchyard, the grave of Susan
Fenimore Cooper attracts the attention of all who are familiar with
local history. A daughter of the novelist, Miss Cooper's memory is
revered in Cooperstown for qualities all her own. After her father's
death her home was at Byberry Cottage. She gained more than local fame,
in her time, as a graceful writer, and was distinguished for her
knowledge of the birds and flowers of Otsego hills. But her life-work
was given to the Orphan House of the Holy Saviour, which she established
in 1870, where homeless and destitute children were cared for and
educated, and where now, on the broader basis of the Susan Fenimore
Cooper Foundation, unusual opportunities for vocational training are
extended to boys and girls. Nor shall it be forgotten that, while others
gave more largely of funds, the Thanksgiving Hospital, founded in
gratitude for the close of the Civil War, originated in Miss Cooper's
heart and mind.
A memorial window in Christ Church idealizes in form and color the
spirit of this noble woman, without attempting portraiture. A real
likeness of Miss Cooper, as she appeared in her ripest years, would
recall a sweet face framed in dangling curls, a manner somewhat prim,
but always gentle and placid, a figure slight and spare, with a bonnet
and Paisley shawl that are all but essential to the resemblance. She
would best be represented in the midst of orphan children whom she
catechises for the benefit of some visiting dignitary, while the little
rascals, taking advantage of her growing deafness, titter forth the most
palpable absurdities in reply, sure of her benignant smile and
commendatory "Very good; very good indeed!"
One of Miss Cooper's most devoted helpers in the early days of the
Orphan House was Dr. Wilson T. Bassett, who for many years gave his
professional services without charge, and greatly interested himself in
the welfare of the children. Dr. Bassett was for a long time the most
widely known physician and surgeon of the region, while his wife, who
followed the same profession, was the pioneer woman physician of Otsego
county, and did much to allay the popular prejudice against women in the
field of medicine. Dr. Wilson Bassett became noted as an expert witness
in medical cases that were carried to court, and in murder trials when
insanity had been set up as a defence. The resourcefulness which he
displayed on such occasions led to his being described as "the most
accomplished witness that has ever been placed upon the stand in Otsego
county." Dr. Bassett's personal appearance marked him as belonging to
the old school. He was the last man in Cooperstown to wear a black stock
about his collar. His face suggested both firmness and a sense of humor.
The quality of decision appeared in the mouth which the smooth-shaven
upper lip displayed above the white chin-whisker, while the tousled
shock of white hair and twinkling blue eyes were indicative of the
whimsical turn of mind that manifested itself in witty and sententious
sayings. His long experience in the court-room made him alive to the
vast expense which the trial and punishment of criminals imposes upon
the State, and led to his belief that criminality is usually to be
attributed to lack of proper training in youth. His favorite plea for
the support of the children in Miss Cooper's orphanage was "It's cheaper
to educate 'em than to hang 'em!" The daughter of the two physicians,
Dr. Mary Imogene Bassett, inherited the talent of both parents, and
later enjoyed the singular distinction, while still in active practice,
of having a monument erected to commemorate her professional career,
when, in 1917, Edward Severin Clark began to build the Mary Imogene
Bassett Hospital and Pathological Laboratory, merging with it the
traditions of the older Thanksgiving Hospital.
[Illustration: _J. B. Slote_
A FUNERAL IN CHRIST CHURCHYARD]
Christ churchyard has been the scene of many impressive funerals, when,
as in olden times, the unity of design in the order for Burial has been
carried out, so that the outdoor function appears as a natural sequence
to the service of the sanctuary, and is connected with it by an orderly
processional from the church to the churchyard. Here, in the glory of
summer foliage, is a superb setting for such a service; and the rare
occasions of interments within this quaint God's acre are long
remembered by those who witness them. After the service in the church
the procession of choir and clergy, headed by the crucifer, issues from
the doorway, followed by stalwart men carrying the bier upon their
shoulders. The mourners and congregation come reverently after, and with
the thrilling chorus of some hymn of triumph over death the procession
moves slowly to the grave. The sunshine sifts through the foliage of the
over-arching trees, glitters upon the processional cross, gleams upon
the white robes of the choristers, and transforms into a mantle of glory
the pall that drapes the body of the dead. A solemn hush falls upon the
company as the priest steps forward for the formal act of burial. The
dust flashes in the sunbeams as it falls from his hand into the open
grave, while the rhythmic phrases of the committal float once again over
the consecrated ground. No words in the English tongue have vibrated
more deeply in human hearts than the majestic and exultant avowal of
faith with which the Church consigns to the grave the bodies of her
dead.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 117: See p. 306.]
[Footnote 118: _A Few Omitted Leaves_, G. P. Keese.]