Old South Burial Ground, Bolton, Worcester, Massachusetts ************************************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ************************************************************************ Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth Subj: Old South Burial Ground by Anne Forbes (Whitcomb Stone by Farnsworth) Richard Witcomb tombstone was engraved by Wm Farnsworth of Groton One signed stone (the only one observed), may give a clue to at least one of the carvers of this early-nineteenth-century type. This is the large slate marker for Richard Whitcomb, who died in 1810, which, though its background is untextured, like the Moore stones, has a similarly fine-scaled, elaborate treatment of the architectural elements in its urn-topped Corinthian capitals. It is signed "Engraved by William Farnsworth, Groton. Note: Bolton was once part of Lancaster, MA INFORMATION BY ANNE FORBES, CONSULTANT TO BOLTON HISTORICAL COMMISSION, JUNE 1998: Old South Burying (Burial) Ground is both Bolton's oldest and largest cemetery. The original parcel donated in 1739 extends for ca. two hundred feet along the northeast side of South Bolton Road. It was expanded in 1871 by a long L-shaped piece to its west and north to become the 7.5-acre cemetery that is still open today. Consequently, the rear third of the cemetery is filled with twentieth-century grave markers, mostly of granite of varying hues; the middle section is transitional, with marble and granite stones of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; and the old burying ground at the front contains a fairly high concentration of about 300 markers. The fact that they are aligned facing west, at a diagonal to the street, which was cut through many years after the cemetery was laid out, gives this burying ground an unusually dynamic quality. The distribution of the markers is somewhat sparser than it was in the past, however, because of the loss of some stones, and especially due to a major loss in 1971, when all the small footstones were removed. The original layout of the front section has also been altered by the late-twentieth- century installation, just inside the center gateway, of a cluster of closely-spaced, simple white marble markers to Bolton's Revolutionary soldiers. A U-shaped gravel drive provides vehicle access from the front to the rear of the cemetery, with two crosswise paths behind the crest of the low hill in the middle of the burial ground. The whole parcel is ringed with a fieldstone retaining wall. The wall along the street front has fairly flat capstones, in which are fitted several wrought-iron hitching rings of a near-spiral design. There are three openings in the wall--one at each outer end at the gravel drive is fitted with square granite gate posts; the one in the middle of the old cemetery wall, clearly meant for pedestrian access, has a granite post in the middle. The only formal landscaping in this burial ground consists of some low shrubbery plantings at some of the modern graves at the rear of the parcel. Several tall mature trees, about 80-100 years old, are scattered throughout the front part of the plot--including a few maples, a tall, venerable pine, and several handsome weeping spruces. The only building in the cemetery is a mid-twentieth century concrete-block tool shed, located toward the rear of the parcel, between the west drive and the west wall. In front of it, in what appears to be working condition, is an early-twentieth-century metal pump. The one tomb in the cemetery, set into the front wall and hillside adjacent to the west drive gateway, dates to the Greek Revival period. Erected by the family of Calvin and Levi Moore (the latter died in 1853), its facade is composed of three huge granite slabs--two square ones supporting a wide, truncated pediment stone. In the center is an iron door, with a hitching ring fixed to the crossing of its stile and rail. There are three table stones here, all with marble or slate tops. One, with the inscription on its marble top nearly effaced, stands on massive chamfered granite legs. The other two have slate tops on brick bases. One is to Bolton's first minister, the Rev. Thomas Goss, with a long inscription in Latin. The other was installed by the Richardson family (see Form #179-- 101 Wilder Road), and lists six of their members, including Caleb, Joshua, and James. Surprisingly, for a cemetery that was open through the middle of the nineteenth century, there are no obelisks here, and none of the curbed- or fenced Victorian-era family plots of the type seen in the West or Pan Burying Grounds. There is only one tall monument in the front, older sections--a square-sectioned, urn-topped marble monument to Nathan and Lucinda Sawyer (died 1885 and 1894), in the added piece west of the gravel drive. The original section of the Old South Burying Ground contains a large number of stones from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, most of them slate, that display most of the major styles and types from that time. While most of the slates are in remarkably good condition, some of the earlier thick stones are spalling, and several are covered in thick lichen growth. The oldest marker, that of the donor of the cemetery, William Sawyer, who died in February 1741, is representative of a sizeable group of mid-century shouldered stones, some tapered toward the bottom, with schematic designs of scrolls, spirals, wheels, and simple mask-like heads in the center of the rounded top. Local researchers have classified many of these, including William Sawyer's, those of James and Hannah Keyes (1746 and 1742), and of Henry Houghton (1756), as likely Worcester stones. A subsequent group of slates from the second half of the eighteenth century are believed to have been carved by stonecutter James Wilder and his contemporaries. These, also of the round- topped, shouldered shape, display highly-skilled, refined carving of lifelike images in their winged heads and skulls, and architectural motifs, often combined with abstract designs. Among the Wilder stones may be all eight markers of the children of Oliver and Mary Pollard from the 1770's and 1780's, and possibly the inscribed, but undecorated slab of the Richardson table stone of the 1780's and '90's. Only one slate marker here could be called a "portrait stone", a type often used for the graves of the most important citizens of a town in the late eighteenth century. This is the handsome marker for the illustrious Gen. John Whitcomb, who died in 1785, and is called, not General, but "Esq." on his marker. It has some simple architectural elements, and an early double willow- like image which arches over a portrait head, complete with wig, although no clothing has been carved. Many family groupings of markers display both the contrasts and transitions between the styles of different eras in this burying ground. One trio from the Houghton family is composed of the Worcester-type stone, with wheels, spirals, and scrolls of Henry Houghton, who died in 1756; an early urn-and-willow stone of Sanderson Houghton, who died in 1799, stands to its east, next to a large, plain ogee-topped marble stone to Joseph Houghton, who died in 1847. By the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century the finely-incised architectural and urn-and-willow designs had been fully-developed on large round- or square- topped slates, of which there are many examples here, as in Bolton's other public cemeteries. Some are particularly fine and elaborate, such as the ones for the family of Caleb and Achsah Moore. The marker for their daughter, Achsah, who died in 1816 at 33 displays a regularly- patterned textured background, decorated urn and willow, and an elaborate architecural treatment that includes palmettes and Ionic capiatals. One signed stone (the only one observed), may give a clue to at least one of the carvers of this early-nineteenth-century type. This is the large slate marker for Richard Whitcomb, who died in 1810, which, though its background is untextured, like the Moore stones, has a similarly fine-scaled, elaborate treatment of the architectural elements in its urn-topped Corinthian capitals. It is signed "Engraved by William Farnsworth, Groton." Marble stones are more common on the graves from the 1850's on. A few have elaborately shaped tops; most are rectangular. Many display only raised block lettering in the family name; others, like the extremely well-preserved group from another Moore family plot in the expanded west section, employ both raised block lettering and, in the date, distinctive large-scale cursive writing. The middle section of the cemetery, opened after 1871, contains a mixture of marble and granite markers, most from the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of the earliest markers there is a double marble "Father" and "Mother" stone, with elaborate raised Victorian lettering and carved ivy adornment, to Temple and Mary Walcott, who died in 1876 and 1877. There is one tall monument in this later section, a ca. 8-foot-tall simple art deco-like granite monolith, to the Bonnazoli family. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, cont. As Bolton's oldest cemetery, which has never been closed to burials, the Old South Burying Ground is a remarkable repository of folk art that reflects the tastes, beliefs, and the lives of the residents of the town over two and a half centuries. Powerful yet changing religious beliefs are evident in the abstract symbols of the early "Worcester" stones, in the angels and death's heads of the late eighteenth century, and in the sentimentality and the cult of mourning epitomized by the urn-and-willow stones of the first half of the nineteenth century. Most inscriptions and quotations on the nineteenth-century markers come from the bible or spiritual literature, and offer solace for the living in their assurance of peace and joy of the afterlife. A few epitaphs, however, speak of the simple qualities valued in the deceased, such as that for Col. Asa Whitcomb, who died in 1806 at the age of forty: "He was an affectionate husband, a tender parent, and a kind neighbor, was charitable to the poor, and an honest man." More often, however, it is simply the presence of the stones and their names and dates that tell of the harshness of the lives of some of Bolton's families, especially in the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A line of small slate headstones, for instance, marks the deaths of seven of the children of Oliver and Mary Pollard between 1775 and 1783, all before the age of sixteen. Four of the Pollard children died in October of 1775; two of them, buried together under one of the earliest double stones in the cemetery, died on the same day. In 1822, as the South Burying Ground was approaching capacity, the town purchased two new plots for additional burial space. One was located in the east part of town, and became the Pan Burying Ground (see Form #801), and the other was in the west, just north of the Great Road near the foot of Green Road, and became the West Burying Ground (see Form #802). A third cemetery had already been in use in the south part of the town since the 1770's, (see Form #804, the Old Fry Burying Ground, and Area Form P), and served the sizeable Quaker population who resided on and owned most of the land in south central Bolton. With the two 1822 purchases, Bolton burials became largely regionally-based for the rest of the nineteenth century, as families in the east part bought plots in the Pan Cemetery and those in the west were interred in the West Burying Ground. Quakers still used the Old Fry ground, and after 1844 the Friends Burying Ground (see Form #803). People who lived in the center of town still tended to be interred in the Old South, many of them in the older family plots which still had space, or in the area that was added in 1871. http://www.historicalcommission.town.bolton.ma.us/main/oldsouth.html Subject: Bolton, Mass. once part of Lancaster. Source: History of Lancaster, Mass. by Abijah P. Marvin, Published by the Town of Lancaster 1879 p.200 The warrant for a Town Meeting at Lancaster, Mass., 1735/6 - John Moor and his allies urged their petition for a new town on the southeast. p.201 The petition of John Moore for a new town on the southeast prevailed, and Bolton went before the general court with the benediction of the old mother town [Lancaster]. The act of incorporation was passed on the twenty-fourth of June, 1738. The church was formed in Bolton November 4, 1741, when the Rev. Thomas Goss was ordained its first pastor. The church was drawn chiefly from the church of Lancaster. Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth David Whitcomb (1877) was born on FEB 20 1668 in Lancaster, Worcester Co., MA.(1878) (1879) He died on APR 11 1730 in Lancaster, Worcester Co., MA.(1880) (1881)(1882) Rix: gives April 9, 1730 He is my 7th great grandfather. 7th great grandfather *Whitcomb Family : "They lived in the Southeastern corner of Bolton, Mass., where they kept a tavern, as is shown by the following : 'To the Honorable Justices for ye county of Middlesex these may sertifie that whereas Mr. David Whetcombe of Lancaster hath applyde himself to us the subscribers for our approbation for his selling strong Drink by Retale, we accordingly Request that your Hon'rs would please to grant the same.' [note: this was dated July 7, 1717-8 and signed by the selectmen : John Houghton, Peter Joslin, Jonas Houghton.] "The following extract from his 'Bond' sets forth in plain terms David's duties and responsibilities as inn-keeper : 'He shal not suffer, or have, any playinge at cards, dice, lally, bowls, ninepins, billiards, or any other unlawful game or games in his said house, or yard, or garden, or backside, nor shal suffer to remain in his house enny person or persons, not being his own family, on Saturday night after dark or Sabbath days, or during the tyme of God's publick worrship; nor shal he entertain as lodgers in his house any strangers, men or women, above the space of forty and eight hours, but such whose names and surnames he shal deliver to some one of the selectmen or constable of the towne, unless they shal be such as he verry well knoweth and will ensure for his or her forthcoming -- nor shal sell enny wine to the Indians or negroes, nor suffer any children, or servant, or other persons, to remane in his house tippling or drinking after nine o'clock in the night -- nor shal buy or take to preserve any stolen goodes, nor knowingly or willingly harbor in his house, barn, stable, or otherwise, any rogues, vagabonds, thieves, sturdy beggers, or offenders whatsoever -- nor shal anny person or persons whatsoever sell or utter any wine, ale, cider, rum or other liquors by defaulting, or by color of his License -- nor shal entertain any person or persons whom he shal be prohibited by law, or by enny one of the Magistrates of the community, as persons of jolly conversation, or given to tippling.' " "David Whitcomb died interstate" ... "Real estate owned by David was divided among his family by partition proceedings. (Concernin David's children, the dates and order of birth are not positively known.)" He was married to * Mary Hayward on MAY 31 1700 in Concord, MA. (1883)(1884) (1885)(1886) *Jaffrey Families: gives Concord, MA