It’s been a while since I have given any love to this blog because I have only been reading books relating to New England and travel as of late but I have come to realize these are still books and maybe I should be reviewing them here!
So here is my latest little gem. I picked it up at a Barnes and Noble in Newport Rhode Island because it was talking to me – HARD. It’s a very thin volume selling for $21 which is normally cause for me to say, “Yup, that was nice but I think I will be leaving it here….” Even my companion that day thought I may have lost my mind.
“It’s VERY specific. Only Newport RI…”
“I know but… what if it has information about the carvers of the slate stones?”
For years I have strolled through historic cemeteries taking special note of the oldest stones from the 1600 and 1700’s, all slate. I knew in these early days of our country that the slate was being quarried in Rhode Island and then another quarry in Boston later on. I knew that most of the stones looked almost identical because whoever was carving them did so with a few basic templates and shipped them to all corners of New England whenever they were needed. But who were the carvers? And why such strange imagery?
I expected this book to just tell me who was buried in Newport. You know, people of note and whatnot but actually it went through not only this but also how the cemeteries formed, by whom, and why, and most importantly it had a whole chapter on the original carvers as well as a little history of what happened with burials before them. The original colonists usually had wooden or no grave markers so the first people to start carving the slate stones were stone masons who were helping build the colonies here in Newport.
It went over how at least one of these carvers was an enslaved black man, another was a guy serving a term of indentured servitude to his in-law’s family, and how this original family business is still going today! Such rare and insightful information! I was thrilled!
And the rest of the book is super interesting too – talking about New England’s largest cemetery for black enslaved individuals, the first synagogue and Jewish cemetery in the colonies, and talked a lot about people of note buried within these handful of cemeteries.
Yes, this was a slim volume but it was packed with information and was well worth buying! And you can purchase a copy of A Guide to Historic Burial Grounds of Newport on Amazon.