Tag: funerary art

Saint Columba Cemetery – Middletown Rhode Island

On this particular outing we weren’t expecting to find much worthy of photography as this cemetery seems to have a rule about only using flat headstones and nothing else making it look more or less like a mowed field.

However there was a lichen covered bridge that made for a delightful photographer’s distraction as well as some sort of witchy resource? Something about water that goes under a cemetery… I’m not a witch so I just blinked at this information.

Another even better distraction was across the parking lot where a church hid all the interesting headstones! The churchyard was small but unique. On this day it was being set up for what I’m guessing was a wedding. An overworked groundskeeper jokingly asked if I was in need of a few buckets of grass. Not today!

We resumed checking out the stones. The first one I saw that stood out was a full bronze woman lying down with a small horse at her feet. Nearby were slate stones with family crests, dragons, and castles. It was very weird! Like we just stumbled into a European cemetery. And then there wad a creepy snarled tree that also distracted me for a few minutes before we made our way back to the car.

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The Charter Street Cemetery – Salem MA

How could we go out for a day of sight seeing without ending up at a cemetery? We can’t, that’s how. Especially when said cemetery is in pristine condition, hosts rows of beautifully engraved slate stones, and is right in the same historic district we were already wandering around. Such is the case for the Charter Street Cemetery which is bordered by memorial stones which have all the names, birth, and death dates of all the Salem witch trial victims who were not buried here – in consecrated ground – but were buried in unmarked graves somewhere. We have long since lost where. It’s an interesting turn of events as it was installed by the town in the early 1990’s and now surrounds the same cemetery which hosts the hanging judge who condemned them all to death as well as a number of other historically pertinent individuals involved with these unfortunate circumstances.

The cemetery has its own gift shop which… I mean, that’s a cemetery after my own heart right there. Who wouldn’t want a T-shirt with the cemetery’s name and a death’s head brandished on the front? This is the place for the morbid at heart. And the cemetery itself is gorgeous! It’s VERY well taken care of and although the stones are from the late 1600’s and early 1700’s they’re in great shape. Almost all of them were legible, above ground, and displaying some delightful art. There wasn’t just death’s heads here but cherubs heads, skull and bones, and random faces.

And the people were hilarious. I was not the only one with an expensive camera sitting on the ground taking close up of the stones I found interesting and all the other taphophiles here seemed very welcoming. This was definitely a different kind of tourist and part of why I love Salem so much.

Meanwhile, as i dithered about, my travel companion was on a quest to find the hanging judge. Luckily there was a little map at the beginning of a cemetery that was easy to follow to find this grave. His stone was encased in granite for some reason, maybe to prevent theft? I don’t know but it was the only stone I could see that looked like this. We held in our boos until we left but really… it’s probably best not to be known as a real life super villain. Just saying.

In any event the cemetery was small but absolutely beautiful and I fell in love with the death’s heads and wish to use them as inspiration for tattoo designs. Would definitely suggest a visit to this cemetery to anyone in the area who may appreciate these things.

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Meeting House Cemetery and Ruins – Marlborough NH

Today I had to go to Marlborough and decided to let the GPS drag me down some back roads. I am so happy I chose to do this instead of going the way I knew! I ended up on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere (which is always a nice thing for me) and when I passed a cemetery that looked like it was full of old slate stones I couldn’t resist. Oh! This cemetery had the most character of any slate graveyard I have been in! Whoever was carving those old stones must have had quite the personality! I got to see all the usual designs – cherubs, urns, weeping willows, but with so much added extra flair it was unbelievable. Odd swoops and swirls, intricate geometric designs, and even one which had a 3-D face. Totally bizarre! But how wonderful!

To add to my joy there was a perfect view of Mount Monadknock from here, a ton of adorable mushrooms springing up, the largest Old School outdoor crypt I have seen in this area (with SEVEN rooms!) and adjoining the cemetery there was the ruins of the old meeting house and the crumbling foundation of the town pound, which I must say was also enormous, historically speaking. Marlborough must have been an epicenter at some point. I was amazed. It’s a tiny town today, mostly populated by trees – so much so my GPS wanted to get me home on an old logging road. I denied this. Didn’t want to die up there. In any event this was a happy little detour for me and my poor mother who I was dragging along for the ride. I made sure to buy her an ice cream afterwards, a belated birthday celebration…. ice cream and a cemetery…. We’re an odd bunch.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!


 

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