Subject: Tombstones
Resent-Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 22:19:35 -0700 (PDT)
Resent-From: SCROOTS-L@rootsweb.com
Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 01:23:30 -0400
From: "Steven J. Coker" 
Organization: http://members.tripod.com/~SCROOTS
To: SCROOTS-L@rootsweb.com

The following is an extract from:

ONE LAST EPISTLE ON TOMB STONES
(c) Sep 25, 1997, Sandra K Gorin, All Rights Reserved

The full text can be found at http://www.usroots.com/~jmurphy/lessons/tip_89.htm

"... Grave markers themselves have evolved throughout the ages. In older days, a
wooden coffin was just placed in the ground covered by a heavy boulder and then
the dirt. The boulder was to protect the grave from grave robbers and
symbolically, the keep the body there safe from evil spirits. Indian burials
were often done on the crest of a hill and people just tossed stones on a pile
over the grave. From the mid 17th century and into the 18th century, the plain
grave marker was becoming more refined. The flat, unadorned slabs were being
replaced with carved vertical stones with inscriptions on the center of the
stone. A footstone was placed paralled to the headstone about 6 feet away - a
much smaller stone with just the initials usualy found. Slabstones were used
during this timeframe also, but not as frequently. They were horizontal
monuments which was a single piece of stone about 3 inches thick and flush with
the surface of the land. Tablestones or "table tombs" were slabstone about 2
inches thick which were raised 2-3 feet on corner leg supports. Carving would be
found on the stone and these are very familiar in this part of Kentucky.

A boxtomb was set off the ground by faced, solid sides. It was normally 2 feet
wide, 6 feet long and 2-3 feet high and resembled a stone coffin....

Stone used for tombstones depended on what was available in that particular
area. Only the rich could afford to import stone from Europe and most people
used what they had. In New England began the use of "green-stones" ... common
field stones. But these did not last. Many field stones of all varieties looked
as their name implies ... stones found in a field and have been dug up, plowed
under or cleared out accidentally by farmers working their fields. It was also
very difficult to carve anything on a field stone.

There are generally five categories of cemeteries, one of which the reader
hopes, describes where an ancestor might be interred.

(1) Government owned,
(2) Church;
(3) church but separated by a distance from same;
(4) privately-owned;
(5) family.

The government owned cemetery would be your city municipal cemetery style.
Better records are kept on these and permits may still be available for the
older burials. The church yard cemetery may or may not still have records
available from the church itself. Some churches kept detailed records in their
minute books. The privately-owned cemetery is operated as a business and there
is a board of directors, fees are paid for maintenances, etc. The family
graveyard is where so many ancestors are buried ... found somewhere close to
where the old house used to stand, out in a corner, under a grove of cedar
trees. The briars and undergrowth have often overtaken the old family cemetery;
trees can be found growing through tombstones with only the corner of the stone
visible. The graves have sunken in and many times the stones have fallen into
the grave. As one walks through the cemetery, field stones maybe seen jutting up
between the poison ivy, briars - or are they just plain stones in the field
instead? Is that depression an old grave? It is a challenge to walk through an
old deserted cemetery. If one grave can be found and confirmed, the searcher can
almost plot the rest of the cemetery. All graves were arranged so the face of
the deceased faced east and they were in rows. Husbands and wives were normally
buried next to each other, flanked by children and other relatives. Sometimes
friends or neighbors were buried in a family cemetery and were not related at
all...."

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Steven J. Coker, carolina@yours.com
Manager, The South Carolina Genealogy Forum
http://members.tripod.com/~SCROOTS