Thursday, June 4, 2009, Photos taken Friday, June 19, 2009
When I learned that I needed to do an outside graveyard site visits for a class I was taking I was slightly puzzled by where I would go for the first week. I did not feel that I knew enough about the subject to go to a large graveyard, but I did not want to select a location that was going to be too small for me to make connections to the course. Moreover, on May 22, 2009 I was involved in a car accident that left my vehicle totaled. While I was lucky enough to walk away, walking is all I had been doing lately. On a Tuesday I was the passenger in a friend’s car and I happened to glance over and take note of a small, marked off graveyard in a rather commercial area within walking distance from my home.
I was able to return to this graveyard on Wednesday, June 3, 2009 on an overcast, unseasonably cold day. The yard sits on Buttonwoods Avenue, near the intersection with Westshore Road. The yard is listed as being 100 feet by 65 feet with the longest sides running north to south with the markers facing east. All around there are average looking granite posts that show signs of former rails, but no longer hold them. These are the only barriers, along with a few bushes and shrubs which separate this graveyard from the parking lots and road that surround it. Within this ground are roughly 40 or so markers ranging from a handful of fieldstones, to mostly flat arched marble stones. I would assume that this was a public burying ground, as there is no obvious family tie between the deceased.
There are several groupings of stones, but no grouping move beyond maybe two or three family members. There is one tripartite marker dated from 1788 and one scroll top marker from the 1830’s. The tripartite is the earliest stone in the yard, which is expected, but this stone is very modern in terms of what is expected of the 18th century. There are no borders, and the only imagery in the tympanum is an urn. The scroll top stone is missing its left shoulder, but there appears to be the faint outlining of a rosette on the right one. There is no obvious imagery in the center panel, but one could have been worn away. There is no other imagery on the stone, but there is a short couplet on the bottom of the stone in italic font.
The majority of the other marked stones are flat arched, with “In Memory of…” etched across the top of them. There is very little imagery present aside from the occasional simple urn. There are several stones with changes in the lettering style and format, which is the showiest any of these markers get. Most of the markers are in fair condition, but there are three that are lying on their backsides, their faces now flush with the ground. One of which is broken into two parts. I noticed that two of the slate markers that are lying on their backs are close to marble bases and I wonder if restoration movements resulted in fallen markers. There is no family name mentioned enough to make me think that this is a family plot, but the site is listed as the “Gorton Lot” a surname which appears on the tripartite stone.
No comments:
Post a Comment