Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Early Settlers

  • Morgan Tombstones, Bethany Cemetery

    In Memory of
    BILLINGSLEY MORGAN
    Who departed this life
    [Marc]h the 7th 1836
    [in the —]th year of his age

    Here is a pair of tombstones by the same extraordinary folk artist—and, because he actually signed one of them, we know his name: H. Savage. Both are badly damaged, but they form a pair side by side, so old Pa Pitt guesses that the illegible stone marks the resting place of Mrs. Billingsley Morgan. Unlike most Western Pennsylvania tombstones of the 1830s, these are handsomely carved in relief, much like the famous New England tombstones of the colonial era, but without the flying skulls.

    Even this unusually artistic and ambitious stonecutter did not sketch out his lettering before beginning the inscription, so that he ran out of space for the name “MORGAN” on Billingsley Morgan’s tombstone.

  • Anthony Boly Tombstone, Bethany Cemetery

    Here is a stone inscribed by someone who obviously did not make a living creating tombstones. Yet the work is done well enough that the stone is perfectly legible nearly two centuries later.

  • Tombstones by J. Sumny in Bethany Cemetery

    Very few of the stonecutters who worked around here before 1840 (or after, for that matter) signed their work. But occasionally one who was particularly proud of one of his productions would put his mark on it, although—oddly—none of them seem to have made a habit of it. J. Sumny, for example, signed this stone:

    The signature “J.Sumny sculpture,mingo” is prominent. “Mingo” was a common term for local American Indian tribes; it is probably the name of a settlement—perhaps Mingo Creek, south of Finleyville, where there is still a church whose congregation was heavily involved in the Whiskey Rebellion.

    This one of only two stones visibly signed by J. Sumny, but we can identify others by him in the same graveyard.

    Elisabeth Law’s is also certainly one of his;

    In addition to the fan ornaments in the corners, note the characteristic ornamental dash after the main inscription and the distinctive ordinal (“26th”) with the superscript “th” underlined, and a double comma under the underline. (Distinctive, but not unique: at least one less artistic stonecutter in the same cemetery also used the underline and double comma for abbreviations.)

    Though it lacks the ornaments, Elisabeth Jeffery’s stone is also by J. Sumny:

    Again we see the characteristic ordinal and ornamental dash, as well as the backslant in the line that identifies the relations of the deceased.

    Moses Coulter McDowell’s tombstone shows all the same quirks, though the shape of the stone itself is fashionably Gothic, like most of the rest of J. Sumny’s stones (the Joseph Alexander stone above is damaged, but probably had the same Gothic spikes). Moses was another child taken away by the same scarlet-fever epidemic that killed Elizabeth Jeffery; it must have been a profitably busy time for stonecutters.

    Again we see that distinctive way of forming ordinals (and the abbreviation “Janr.”)

    Hardly a family in the Bethany Presbyterian Church was spared by this scarlet-fever epidemic. The winter of 1831 was a somber time in the little settlement. Catharine Herriott also died, and was given a very fine stone by J. Sumny:

    It is a rare thing to be able to identify one of these local craftsmen by name, but J. Sumny’’s signature on one stone has allowed us to attribute a number of others to the same artist.

    Added: J. Sumny continued to practice in this area for some years, and Father Pitt has found another signature of his, this time on a very plain stone. Father Pitt is inclined now to believe that he signed all his works, but almost always near the bottom of the stone, so that most of the signatures are under the ground by now. Indeed, the first time Father Pitt photographed the James Hastings tombstone from 1840, the signature was not visible:

    But having fortunately returned just after the cemetery received one of its infrequent mowings, he found the signature that had been obscured by vegetation. We see here that, by 1840, he was spelling his name “Sumney”:

    Recognizing that the style of J. Sumny (or Sumney) had changed somewhat over the years, Father Pitt is now inclined to say that probably half the early settlers’ tombstones in this graveyard were inscribed by him.

  • George and Rachel Dickson Tombstone, Robinson Run Cemetery

    in memory of
    George Dickson
    Who died Dec. the 8th A.D.1817
    in the 83d, year of his age.
    Also of
    Rachel Dickson his wife
    Who died May A.D. the 20th
    1798 in the 47th year of her age.

    These are probably the parents of the Agness Dickson who died in 1799 and is buried next to them. Their stone was cut by the same craftsman who cut Agness’ stone, whom we call the Master of the Curly G. Here, however, he has done much more elaborate work, which may be explained by his having had eighteen years of experience since Agness’ stone. The decorations are something new, and the individual letters seem more neatly made.

    This tombstone gives us very good evidence of how our early stonecutters did their work. We can still see the lines scratched into the stone with a straightedge to align the letters. But it is equally plain that the stonecutter did not first trace the letters with chalk or any other impermanent material: he made his lines, and then he just started writing. If it were not so, he would not have been taken by surprise when he came to the end of a line and had no room for the E in “wife.” He would not have left out the day of the month in Rachel’s inscription, then realized his mistake, shrugged, and stuck it in after “A.D.” And this seems to be the almost universal practice of the stonecutters of two centuries ago: they never drew the inscription first before cutting it, but launched straight into cutting the letters, dealing with errors in any clumsy way that occurred to them.

    Now, it is quite possible that Agness’ stone was cut at the same time as this one, rather than when she died in 1799. In favor of that proposition we have these arguments:

    1. Both stones were cut by the same craftsman (but, on the other hand, local craftsmen often worked for decades in the same cemetery).
    2. Rachel, who died in 1798, apparently did not have a stone until her husband George died, so it is reasonable to suppose that Agness might not have had one either.

    There are enough differences between the work on this stone and the work on Agness’, however, including the decorations and (in Father Pitt’s eyes) much neater individual letters, to suggest that the stonecutter might have been considerably older and more experienced when he cut this stone. Old Pa Pitt regards the matter as worthy of further investigation.

  • Agness Dickson Tombstone, Robinson Run Cemetery

    in memory of
    Agnesſ Dickson
    Who died feb. the 11th A.D.
    1799 in the 21ſt year of her
    age

    If this stone was cut when Agness Dickson died in 1799, then it is one of the oldest legible grave markers in the Pittsburgh area. Father Pitt is not sure that it was not put up later, however; it could have been cut at the same time as her parents’ stone in 1817.

    Robinson Run Cemetery is a fairly large cemetery near McDonald. It includes a fourteen-acre burying ground that obviously goes back to the 1700s, and many interesting tombstones may be seen there.

    The work of this stonecutter is distinctly recognizable, and he has left a few other stones in the same graveyard. His most distinctive quirk is his habit of making a lower-case G like a curly number 3. Following our usual custom, therefore, we shall call him the Master of the Curly G.

    On this stone he has made use of the long S twice, and in both cases he gets it wrong. He uses it for the second member of the double S in “Agness,” when it should be the first; and he uses it in the ordinal “21st,” but makes it shorter than the T following (it should be longer, since the long S should have the same dimensions as a lower-case F).

    Note the spelling “Agness,” by the way, which seems to have been the usual spelling of that name among the early settlers of western Pennsylvania.