Charleston Graveyards – A Walk Through the Past
As the year draws to a close and the shadows grow long in the early red twilight, in the darkening time when autumn festivals give way to holiday celebrations, many of us find ourselves reflecting on the past. What we’ve accomplished and what we’ve lost, a remembrance that there is an ebb and flow to our lives. The waning months of the year often remind of us of everlasting change and renewal, birth and death, a rhythm as old and timeless as the cycle of the seasons. One way to immerse yourself in the past is to visit one of Charleston’s historic gravesites.
The technical difference between a graveyard and a cemetery is consecrated ground—often interpreted as a graveyard being attached to a house of worship, where a cemetery is placed on public land or otherwise not attached to a church building. These burial plots are free to the public throughout the daylight hours. Photographs are encouraged, however rubbings and leaning on stones are strictly prohibited due to the delicate nature of many stones.
The Circular Congregational Churchyard, located at the corner of Cumberland and Meeting Streets, is a gem of history and quiet, somber beauty. The site boasts over five hundred gravestones, though just as many are believed to be missing due to the march of weather and war. One stone is even missing a large chunk of slate, believed to have been torn away by an incoming mortar shell! The yard holds more than 150 markers that pre-date the American Revolution, including the oldest known grave in Charleston from 1675, and oldest surviving tomb structure, a round-topped brick burial vault covered in stucco and void of any markings. This distinct 1690s tomb is easily discerned by its uniquely round, curving shape, akin to an oversized casket, amidst obelisks and ornate portrait stones standing in neat, tight rows nearby.
Some of the oldest gravestones in the country can be discovered at the Circular Congregational Church, as well as some of the loveliest examples of funerary art and decoration. Much of the work is New England in origin, as the affluent families of Charleston kept with the tradition of importing any fashionable items not available locally; and as there is no natural stone in the Lowcountry, this trade with the North became established almost immediately. Often, one can find a name or city, such as Newport, Rhode Island, where the work of the stone was produced. However, local merchants were not wanting for success in the death business. Historian Walter Fraser has noted, “[sic]…gentlemen and ladies could surround themselves …in silver’d burial coffins of red bay mahogany…to be purchased from downtown merchants, such as William Hammett, at the sign of the Coffin and Chair.”
St. Philip’s Episcopal Churchyard and Cemetery, just south of the Market on Church Street, houses some of the most noted politicians and statesmen from South Carolina’s colorful past—including John C. Calhoun, Colonel William Rhett “the Scourge of the Pirates,” and Edward Rutledge, the youngest man to sign the Declaration of Independence. Unmarked, but interred here, is Christopher Gadsden, who designed the famous “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. Also buried here is writer Dubose Heyward, author of Porgy.
St. Philip’s was the official church of the early settlement, arguably with closer ties to England than any other congregation, and therefore a number of the early gravestones here were imported from England. Much of the English work has been worn down, but certain stones, such as that of Anna Scott, d. 1740, bear proof of the sophisticated skill of the English carvers. Facial expressions on cherubs, delicate scrolling and fluttered wings make these some of the most artful in the city.
Decoration of stones ranged in style and taste, with all manner of symbolic plants such as fig, acanthus, pomegranate and weeping willow. The early stones are especially laden with influence of the Puritan ways of New England. During early Puritan church services, ministers would often set a large hourglass on the pulpit to time their sermons; the passage of time and the space of human life were also easily reflected in such a symbol. A common inscription is the Latin phrase Memento Mori (remember, you must die).
Perhaps one of the most popular symbols would be of the skull, the archetype of mortality. A close runner-up is the image of a “soul effigy”—or a winged face. Many soul effigies were carved with facial expressions including happiness, sorrow, wonderment, or dismay. After the “Great Awakening,” a religious movement that began to spread through the American colonies around 1720, the harsh symbols of bony skulls and cryptic hourglasses slowly evolved into the more pleasant, forgiving angels and flower wreaths popular today.
While the skull itself has been an eternal symbol of death and used extensively on funerary markers, one of the rarest symbols is a full, complete skeleton. St. Philip’s boasts two of these unique, eerie and unforgettable stone carvings. One such skeleton marker belongs to Thomas Pool, d. 1754. Pool’s skeleton rests comfortably against a winged hourglass, its haunting, smiling face staring endlessly at the inscription above it: Yesterday for me & to Day for thee. The other marker belongs to Mary Quincy, dating to 1742. On the left, a full skeleton pulls at the branches of a palm tree while leaning against a winged hourglass; on the right, a young girl is depicted holding onto the Anchor of Hope.
Stones were usually made from marble, sandstone or slate, the latter having held up through the years with near-perfect clarity. Slate stones from the 1700s are often so well preserved that upon close inspection they still show the thin rule-lines their artisans used to keep the lettering straight! Wording on the stones is varied and contradictory; until Noah Webster began to standardize the English language in the 1780s, “f” appears as “s,” and words such as “consort” for wife, “relect” for widow can be found.
Enjoy a time of quiet reflection in Charleston’s historic gravesites!