A Graveyard at Sunset

Last Thursday evening I took a walk by myself down to St Patrick's Catholic Church and Cathedral to look at the plethora of gravestones they had in their cemetery. Sadly, a lot of the gravestones were in varying states of disrepair, with the majority of them being illegible and unable to be deciphered. However, there was still a vast amount that could be told by the differences in the headstones themselves, and I took pictures and deciphered 10 different examples from this one cemetery. The website for the church I visited is here: https://www.stpatrickcharleston.org and there facebook is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/St-Patricks-Catholic-Church/114091581953166 . For reference the description of each gravestone will be across from each picture.

•     What I could read on this headstone seems to say "SACRED in memoriam to WILLIAM BURKE". it then says some more illegible things, then it says "who departed this life August 5, 185(0 or 9) Aged 12 years. The image at the top in interesting however, as it shows a lamb sitting on a coffin surrounded by Ivy. Lambs signify child death, and while this child seemed to be 12 at the time of his death, his parents seemed to think he was pure and innocent enough to use a lamb, which usually reserved for babies or infants under 2. The Lamb itself is surround by weeping willows, which are oftentimes used to show great amount of mourning.

•  This headstone was nearly illegible from the wear of most likely years and years of rainfall and weather erosion. But I didn't need words to know who was buried here. Any amateur studier of gravestone and graveyards knows that a sleeping lamb is the most likely indicator of a child's grave. This child most likely died under the age of 1 or 2, and as childhood morality rates though most of the 18th and 19th century were very low, these are a common grave markers to see in any old graveyard.

•   I couldn't decipher much of anything on this gravestone other than that it says IN MEMORIAM and BORN and DIED is written twice, but I couldn't read the actual birth and death dates of either. Whats interesting about this headstone is the depiction above. It seems to show a baby or cherub laying on some stone or square corroded by sticks. The child is surrounded by cherubs, which were common symbols in the victorian age, signifying heaven, angles and purity, but most often the grave of children. My educated guess as to this gravestone is a mother and child who sadly both died in childbirth. It would make sense with the seemingly sleeping infant being watched over by angels.
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•  This Gravestone seems to be fairly in tact. I can make out it saying "To (Geralline?) beloved (wife) and daughter" and the date "June 26th 1861" and the name "Mary P. Bellinger." but nothing else. What is the interesting part is the picture above. A cross placed within a crown is most often used to symbolize Sovereignty to the Lord, showing that the two woman buried here were very religious in life. 

•  This gravestone seems to be in very good shape. It says "Sacred to the memory of JAMES KENNEDY who was born in the township of Gro...?) in the parish of (Magbera) Derry IRELAND who departed this life 15th of Sep 1858 in the 55th year of his AGE" This gravestone gives us a lot of detail into this person, saying they were born in Ireland and immigrated to Charleston at some point. What is interesting about this particular carving is the leaves. On one side of the cross are oak leaves. Oak leaves are sacred for Christians and symbolize strength and honor. Sadly, I cannot definitively identify the plants on the other side. 

• This gravestone seems to be clearly from the victorian era, as it is surrounded by the classic victorian fence and has the elaborate carving that is tell tale to that era. A cross is used to signify Christianity and from what I have read, Ivy is oftentimes used to signify memory, immorality, faithfulness (which would go with the symbolism of the cross) and eternal life. Vines are also used to signify the Sacrament of God's blood.

• This gravestone was in the same victorian era fenced off area as the last gravestone so one can only assume it was from that same era. It is a great example of an obelisk, and sadly as obelisks have a slightly tilted surface, rainwater runs down it very easily, greatly speeding up the erosion process which is why the sides of this particular gravestone was entirely illegible to me (I sat there for 10 mins at least trying to read it). What is interesting is that there seems to be a carving of a family crest on the top half. Family crests oftentimes indicate close familial connections to Europe, and seeing as this is a Catholic Church, and knowing of the religious differences on the European countries, I would guess this is most likely an Irish family crest. This is also coupled with the fact that we have already seen one person buried in this graveyard from Ireland, I think this is safe to assume is an Irish Family crest.

•  As you can probably see, there is absolutely nothing that can be read in this gravestone. This is sad because the picture above tells so much. It depicts two cherubs, one with wings, the other holding a stick, floating above what seems to be two small open caskets with a bell between them. Typically, a bell is used to symbolize .... My best guess is that this is the gravestone of twins who perished in childbirth.

• This gravestone most clearly says "OUR SON" but sadly I couldn't read much else. what is interesting however is the carving, which seems to depict a plant bend over with the weight of some type of fruit. From my research, this seems to symbolize the mortality of life, as a tree usually symbolize life itself.

• This Gravestone says "SACERD to the MEMORY of Mrs MARY MAGUIRE" What is interesting is the carving above however, as it was by far the most common carving I saw in the cemetery. It is the inscription of IHS with a cross between it. I saw at least a dozen headstones with this carving. Based off of my research, IHS is a monogram for Jesus Christ based off of the original Greek spelling of his name. This was very interesting to me as because I was in a Catholic Graveyard and Latin is the language of the Catholic Church, I assumed it would have meant something in Latin.

• Last but not least is this giant tombstone which I can only assume is for multiple people. At the top is the depiction of the divinity scene, with the North Star and Mary and Joseph praying over baby Jesus. Down below, it shows a cross flanked on either side by hearts. Hearts usually symbolize love for god, and when coupled with the cross and the add-on of the entire divinty scene above, it is safe to say that the people buried here were very religious and valued the teachings of the Bible. 

Ruth Miller says Charleston is better than Philadelphia? More at 11

"When you win a war, you write the history books"

This is what Ruth Miller says in regard to the history of the city of Charleston. Ruth became interested in Charleston's history and particularly the history of graveyards in the city because she used to be a tour guide and would get to see people's intrigue with these cemeteries up close and personal. There were many reasons for this intrigue, as Ruth would elaborate on later, but to begin with you have to understand the background of the city of Charleston to understand why there are so many graveyards, to begin with.

Charleston was actually established in 1670, before the city of Philadelphia, and the state of Carolina, which by that time stretched all the way from Virginia to Texas, was charter land given to a friend of the king, Anthony Ashely Cooper, as a token of his gratitude. This is similar to the charter land given to William Penn which would shrink and eventually become Pennsylvania. But why then was Charleston different from any other city?

For one, the people who came to Charleston did not come directly from England, as most other colonies' populations had. In fact, the first shipment of people to come to Charleston came from the West Indies, and with them, they brought their same system of slavery used for the harsh plantations down there and henceforth making themselves rich in the rice farming industry. This resulted in by 1710 there was a larger black population in Charleston than white, sadly not representative in the graveyards in this city, and also making Charleston more wealthy and cosmopolitan than Philadelphia by 1776. But why else is Charleston different?

Ruth says "We (Charleston) have more 18th century graveyards than any other city in this country. We have 12 graveyards marked 18th century." Why is that you might ask? Ruth explains that Charleston wasn't founded by one group seeking religious freedom, as with the Puritans in Massachusetts. Charleston actually granted religious freedom in its original constitution, saying "Therefore any seven or more persons agreeing in religion shall constitute a church". This lead to a diverse amount of religious groups setting up congregations within one city, which was vastly different from the more northern cities of the time where religious diversity was very much not ok.

Charleston to this day has a large number of churches and religious institutions dating back to the 18th century and before.

To understand each church in Charleston, I will give a brief synopsis of each denomination;

Anglicans

-St Michels Church, the oldest church in the city, built on top of the old graveyard

-They followed the Church of England so they were not persecuted or trying to escape. They came to Charleston mainly to make money in the rice trade

Methodist 

-This was a mainly black congregation in Charleston, one of the only churches to be so at that time in history

First Baptists Church

-Every southern baptist church started at First Baptists Church in Charleston 

Congregationalists

-Oldest graveyard in the city

Quakers

-Gave equal rights to women! Yay!

-No priests no ministers, just went to meeting houses, hence the name "Meeting street"

-Sadly died out :(

Lutherans

-St. Johns Church

-German-speaking 

French Protestants

-Refugees of Western Europe

-Different than New Orleans French citizens, those were Roman Catholics

Irish Roman Catholics

-not liked until after 1783

-fled from the Santa Domingo after the slave uprising in Haiti

Presbyterians

-Carvers came from Scotland

-We didn't have any in Charleston because there is no stone to carve

Jews

-Here by 1690, creating one the oldest Jewish Synagogue in the south

What is important about every denomination I just listed? They all have graveyards located in the city of Charleston. In the 18th century, only the rich had tombstones, some had hand-carved portrait tombstones, but most were diverse, ranging from skulls and crossbones to souls and angles to cherubs. With the entrance of the Victorian era began the fad of romanticizing death. This resulted in more elaborate gravestones such as weeping women and elaborate motifs. All of these styles of gravestones can be seen in Charlestons' many graveyards.

So to answer the question as to why Charleston has so many graveyards, Ruth says "Why we have so many graveyards? Nobody would bury anybody with anybody else". With such a large amount of religious diversity, every church wanted its own graveyard for its followers. This leads to the vast amount of graveyards on our small peninsula, and to Ruth's passion for discovering more about them. Overall, I thought Ruth was a wonderful speaker and I very much enjoyed listening to her tell about Charleston history and the graveyards located in our city. To read more of her work regarding gravestones, visit the links to her website here:

lowcountrylink.com 

and the link to purchase her books here:

http://lowcountryinc.com/charlestongiftshoppe.htm

Ghosts In Our Graveyard?

This week my group and I went to visit our church graveyard we adopted. You can read more about it in the link below.

https://taylorbuchangravygraves.blogspot.com/2019/09/haunted-unitarian-church.html

First Week of School!

I just finished up my first full week at Cofc! I cannot believe how much I love it here. I started off early at Cougar Excursion and met two awesome girls, Abby and Hannah, as well as scores of other people I see around campus all the time. It was so much fun and definitely worth it. Here is a picture I took from one of the houses on the beach.

 My roommate Grace is so awesome and hilarious; I really love spending time with her.
My classes are all super cool, I especially like my Theater class. I thought I would be more homesick, moving 9 hours away from all my friends and family, but in all honesty, I'm really not. I grow to love Charleston more and more every day and this city is really starting to feel like home.