Southern Graves

I still sometimes get surprised by what trying to tell tales of tombstones can uncover. Yesterday, I was interested in John Redfiern (or Redfearn, and later Redfern) of Washington County, Georgia mainly for the way he pronounced and spelled his surname. Then I discovered – thanks to Joy Smith and her public family tree – this nugget from Washington County, Georgia Tombstone Inscriptions (pub. 1967) compiled by Elizabeth Pritchard Newsom. It was under the heading of "A Strange Headmarker." The second was a strange but enduring object used as a headstone to mark a grave. It was a glazed piece of turned clay pottery shaped like a bell jar, about sixteen to eighteen inches tall and nine to ten inches in diameter at the base. Near the base the sides flared into a slight lip or flange, and this, covered with earth, gave it great stability. The domed top offered the greatest possible resistance to breakage from falling trees and limbs which damage many slabs and monuments. The bot...

This tombstone has been standing at Marshallville City Cemetery for so long a tree has grown up around a portion of it.  Elizabeth Rembert died 5th January 1837, at the age of 51 years – 180 years ago. But what I really want to share with you is the signature in the bottom right corner of the stone:  J. Artope . James B. Artope was the name of a marble cutter and stone mason from Macon, GA, located about 35 miles from Marshallville.  He was born 4 December 1809 in Charleston, South Carolina.  I know James came to Macon by the taking of the 1840 census, and the stone above puts him there even a few years earlier.  Every census record from 1850 to 1880 shows James working in the marble industry.  The following is a collage of snippets from the 1860, 1870, and 1880 records. James died 13 December 1883, and was buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon .  He easily made tombstones for his fellow Georgians for well over thirty years.  James also passed the...

I didn't believe it at first.  But then I found a newspaper article that confirmed it.  John Walz, well known German born sculptor of Savannah, Georgia, was commissioned to carve a statue of Bertha Wolff – and that statue was delivered to and placed in Rose Hill Cemetery at Macon, Georgia. I am deeply in love with Macon's Rose Hill Cemetery .  It's one of the few things I was sad to leave when we moved to the mountains.  But it doesn't get oohed and ahhed over quite as much as Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery.  Over 100 pieces of mortuary art found in Bonaventure are attributed to John Walz.  To know a piece of art by a sculptor who helped give Bonaventure some of those oohs and ahhs was located in Rose Hill, tickled me pink. Think you don't know John Walz? Well, maybe you do.  One statue he carved out of marble is pretty well known.  If you visit Bonaventure, you'll find directions pointing to it, and you will likely find a few people already ther...

Charles Boynton Memorial Photo © 2012 S. Lincecum A couple of weeks ago, I shared with you the monument erected for Charles E. Boynton (d. 1890) in Oakland Cemetery at Atlanta, Georgia. This memorial is the work of M. Muldoon & Co. of Louisville, Kentucky. Photo © 2012 S. Lincecum A 1977 National Register of Historic Places nomination form regarding the Tyler-Muldoon House in Louisville, Kentucky includes some information about Michael Muldoon and his company: "...The house was built in 1866 for Erastus D. Tyler, a Louisville insurance and real estate agent. It was later owned by Michael Muldoon, founder of the marble-cutting firm that was the predecessor of the present Muldoon Monument Company... Tyler-Muldoon House From Wikimedia Commons ...Michael Muldoon was born in Ireland and came to New York City in 1849. He learned the marble-cutting trade and after working as a journeyman marble-cutter in New York, Baltimore and West Virginia, he came to Louis...

"The monument to the 'Unknown Confederate Dead' marks the final resting place of approximately 3,000 unknown Confederate soldiers who died during the Atlanta campaign in 1864. In 1869, the Atlanta Ladies Memorial Association had the 'battlefield dead' soldiers that had been buried in hastily-dug trenches near the battlefields brought to Oakland [cemetery] and independently reinterred in the square guarded by the Lion of Atlanta... ...The Lion is carved from marble supplied by the Georgia Marble Company of Tate, Georgia. The monument weighs 30,000 pounds and was carved from the largest block of marble ever quarried in America until that time (1894)... The figure represents a lion that has received its death wound, and in his agony he is grasping and attempting to draw towards him the battle flag of the Confederacy." 1 The sculptor was T. M. Brady of Canton, Georgia. He was inspired by a suggestion that the monument emulate the Lion of Lucerne . In to...

Remember the stone I showed you a couple of days ago? The one for Kate Malone Sullivan ? I was able to find out a bit about the monument maker when I came across a newspaper article that profiled the business of Crouch Marble and Granite Company. The Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Sunday, 12 June 1904 DOINGS IN ATLANTA; OR NOTES AROUND THE HUB: MONUMENTAL WORK Of the Most Artistic Design and Workmanship -- Crouch Marble and Granite Company. The towering shaft of sculptural marble or granite which marks the spot where pomp and beauty have been leveled by the grave or the rude headboard roughly placed that tells the passerby that some poor wayfarer has gone to his long home, all remind us that life is transitory. Everything connected with the subject of caring for the last resting place of a loved relative or commemorating the deeds of those who in life inspired our reverence and respect naturally makes us diffident about haggling over the cost as in other purely business tra...

The above signature is carved into a marble ledger marker located at Waverly Hall Cemetery in Harris County, Georgia. A little research led me to Mr. Michael Gannon. Census records suggest he was born between 1812 and 1820 in Ireland. He was naturalized in Charleston, South Carolina in the year 1847. Michael and family are found in the 1860 US Federal Census for Charleston, South Carolina. They are in Ward 3, enumerated on page 9, dwelling 58, family 54 (lines 5-12): Michael Gannon / age 40 / male / occ: Stone Cutter / b. Ireland Mary Gannon / 35 / F / b. Ireland John Gannon / 17 / M / South Carolina Michael Gannon / 15 / M / South Carolina Mary Ann Gannon / 13 / F / South Carolina William J. Gannon / 7 / M / South Carolina Thomas F. Gannon / 2 / M / South Carolina James Gannon / 28 / M / occ: Stone Cutter / b. Ireland By 1870, the craft was being passed on to his son, as both the elder and younger Michael were listed as Stone Masons. A second son, William, joined in as ...