This has been the semester of a lot of cemetery talk around my office. First was the Library Company of Philadelphia's conference on Laural Hill Cemetery -- where I spoke some about constitutionalism in cemetery dedication addresses. Then, a few weeks back I went to Craig Friend's fabulous conference on death in the south over at NC State -- had a great time there, listening to all manner of papers, from cemeteries to mourning practices, stretching from the pre-war era to the twentieth century.
I even had the chance to talk with a couple of participants about one of the strangeest wills that I've ever seen -- and believe me, I've seen a lot of strange ones of the years. It's Johathan Pickens' will from Greene County, in which he freed one of his slaves, Caroline, and her daughter (also, presumably, his daughter) as well as any other children born to Caroline within nine months of his death. So far so good -- this is something that we've all heard about before. But then he left instructions that the slave child Alfred, who had predeceased him, should be exhumed and buried at his feet. Pickens' will provided:
Having lost my much devoted little boy Alfred, who I do think possessed the finest disposition of any child I ever knew, and being ardently attached to him, I do hereby desire that his remains be taken up and deposited at my feet whenever I may be buried. This request may seem singular, but really if I thought it would be neglected I would die miserable. I will remark that for years of my illness I was much troubled with cold feet in the winter and the application of hot bricks answered only as temporary relief, this little fellow remarked that if I would let him sleep at my feet that he would keep them warm, which I consented to and derived much comfort from the experiment. I therefore desire that when I am laid in my last bed that he may occupy the same position that he was allowed to do when we were living.
Perhaps you'd be interested in speculating some on the meaning of this?
One of the highlights of the conference was a tour of the Raleigh City Cemetery, which was founded in the very late eighteenth century -- around the time of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery just across the street from where I work. The cemetery has some mighty elaborate tombs and grave markers-- which I suppose testifies to the wealth around Raleigh in the early nineteenth century. On the left is a monument to one of the Polks, though not James K., as I recall.
The fabulous M. Ruth Little -- author of the definitive book on North Carolina cemeteries, Sticks and Stones: Three Centuries of North Carolina Gravemarkers -- led the tour. She pointed out how the cemetery is racially segregated -- no surprise -- but it's also segregated in terms of where people were living at the time of their death, as I understand it. Thus, white Raleigh residents were in a different section of the cemetery from people who lived elsewhere but died while visiting Raleigh. Something else that Ruth pointed out, which may also help explain the grand grave markers and tombs in the cemtery is that there was a resilient community of stone-cutters who lived in Raleigh in the middle of the nineteenth century and that may help account for the somewhat European feel to the cemetery.
I must say that I've enjoyed very much the few moments I've had this spring to visit cemeteries -- Hollywood in Richmond, Mount Auburn in Cambridge (oddly, on succesive days), the Old Raleigh Cemetery and at the very end of last year Oaklands in my home town of West Chester and Poplar Grove in Petersburg. I'm most looking forward to having a little spare time this summer to visit some more cemeteries, including one of my favorities, Oconee Hill in lovely Athens, where I'll be in early June for a conference for teachers on Georgia's secession decision.
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