Jersey Shore Cemetery

What’s a summer beach vacation without a stop at a cemetery? Even when I take my family to the Jersey shore, I map out a local cemetery to visit. Now, Long Beach Island (South Jersey) has no graveyards to my knowledge, so you must head inland a bit. The town of Manahawkin on Route 9 in Ocean County is right on the mainland just before you hit the causeway out to the island. There are half a dozen small old graveyards between Manahawkin and Tuckerton, five miles south on Route 9. I figured that on Saturday morning, I’d get up before my wife and daughter, drive over and do some shooting.

So on Friday night, I told Jill I’d be heading out early the next morning to do some photography. She said she noticed that I was all shpilkas (Yiddish term for having ants in one’s pants) and looked like I needed to get it out of my system. I got my camera gear ready and set my alarm for six a.m. It feels most insane to wake up that early when you’re on vacation. 

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean, Beach Haven, New Jersey

When I awoke, I was surprised to see that the sun hadn’t yet risen! Can’t really make photographs without light, now can we? So I decided to go out to the beach and shoot the sunrise while I was waiting. (Here's a secret: I’ve made far more sunset photographs than sunrise ones.) It was quite a magnificent display that the summer sun presented about ten minutes later, here over the Atlantic Ocean. Took a few shots, sighed with awe at nature's majesty, then jumped into the car. There were tasks at hand. I only had two hours and still had to score coffee and a bun somewhere, creep the eight miles up the island at 25 mph, and tear across the causeway and Barnegat Bay at high speed.

Long Beach Island (LBI) really hasn’t changed much in the twenty-five years since I brought my first brood of children here. Quaint little shops and a family-oriented atmosphere, very few amusements and no boardwalk − totally unlike Wildwood and Atlantic City to its south. In fact, LBI seems to be the cutoff point between the north Jersey shore (with Asbury Park and Point Pleasant) and the south Jersey shore. Architecture changes drastically, vacationers are different. It’s much quieter and cleaner to the north. You begin to notice the change fairly quickly as you head north on Route 9 past Manahawkin.

Odd Fellows "FLT" symbol

Lighthouse engraving

As I hit town, I realized that over the years, I had passed Manahawkin’s Greenwood Cemetery so many times that my memories are worn (as John Prine says in his song Paradise). However, I never stopped there. Always had a carload of kids, or something. Times change. 

The front name fencing of this rural cemetery was bathed in the early rays from the sunrise − quite nice edge-of-the-day light with which to make photographs.  I like those sign fences, or whatever they’re called. I parked my wife’s Toyota RAV4 in the center of the small, football field-sized cemetery, got out and quickly surveyed the place. Only had an hour until I needed to head back to Beach Haven (I swear, that’s really the name of the town where we were staying), pick up Jill and Olivia (our three-year-old daughter), and head out to breakfast. Until then, I’d enjoy the quiet solitude of this Victorian seashore graveyard.

Plot borders at Greenwood Cemetery

The ground throughout the cemetery was sandy, with sparse grass. There were trees and old iron fencing at the front, the land grassier toward the back. There were strange, yet carefully delineated family plots throughout – all well-maintained. The borders were generally just low marble or concrete curbing with white gravel or sand over the graves. I couldn’t really do these justice with a photograph, so click my friend Kimberly Killeri’s video for a better idea of what I’m talking about (the video is interesting in its attention to detail). Greenwood offers just one angel statue at the back, but this lovely graveyard has many other things to offer gravers and taphophiles.

As I munched my glazed donut and set my convenience store coffee cup down on a tombstone, I noticed the odd little zinc medallion you see at left. I shot it and did a bit of research later. Remember the Boston Tea Party (1773)? Well, the "S and D of L" were responsible for that. The name "Sons and Daughters of Liberty" was given to the secret clubs of marauding American patriots that threatened the British ruling authority prior to 1776. Up and down the eastern seaboard, this "private band of societies provided an intercolonial network that would help forge unity" through "extralegal means" (reference: http://www.ushistory.org/us/10b.asp).

Another interesting thing I stumbled on (literally) was this set of stones at the front of Greenwood Cemetery. "Friend?" How close a "friend" would you say? This was not the family name, by the way. There was a large monument among these stones with that name one it.

Roaming around, I found several interesting decorative items, offerings, lighthouse carvings on stones, and so on. But, you know how every once in a while you find some REALLY unusual piece of architecture or statue that just produces utter delight? This was the case for me when I found this amazing little cast iron gate! It was swung partly open, and may have been like that for years – or at least since the last coastal storm. It bore the family name and date, along with a splendid harp design below. I don't believe I've ever seen one like it in person, though I'd seen vintage photos of them from cemeteries of the late 1800s.

All too soon, I'm tearing back over the causeway, the morning sun blazing as I drive past the weird Jersey signs, the custard stands, fudge shacks, the “Pottery  Barge.” I'm blasting Izzy Stradlin's G'n'R version of the Stones' Dead Flowers on the car stereo, feeling good about another successful adventure in a new cemetery. But I face another challenge: fighting the breakfast crowd at Uncle Will’s Pancake House.

Boot Hill Cemetery

Even if you HAD ever heard of Elkton, Maryland, it was probably for just one thing – the no-fault divorce. While Las Vegas gets all the publicity for such things, in little Elkton, you can get a non-resident divorce, whether or not both spouses agree! If you don’t find yourself in Elkon for some very specific reason, it’s very likely that you’re very simply, lost! I’m referring to an area about ninety miles northeast of Washington D.C., about where the Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland cultures collide. I like to think of this vicinity as an extension of the Brandywine area, quite dark and spooky, with all the houses looking like they were painted by Andrew Wyeth.

So I was in Elkon last week, not for a divorce, but to do some cemetery photography. Elkton has a small town center, which radiates out into serious farmland. I’m talking cows here. Of all the cemeteries I mapped out to visit, I had hoped the one named “Boot Hill Cemetery” would be most interesting. While it shares its name of course with the much more famous Boot Hill in Tombstone, Arizona, in its own way, it did not disappoint.
 

Boot Hill Cemetery is not the easiest thing to find. Of course, printed-out scraps of paper from Google Maps lying all over the seat of my car may not have been the best plan (my wife keeps insisting on a GPS). Feeling that I must be within spitting distance of the cemetery, I pulled up to a group of good ol’ boys to ask directions (I’m not above that, especially at dusk). They pointed and said, “Right up the hill.” Huh, so Boot Hill Cemetery is actually on a hill. I turned around in the driveway across the street (with the “Parking for Dale Earnhardt Fans Only” sign nailed above the garage) and headed up yonder.

Boot Hill is a rural churchyard cemetery - the small wooden church you see at top of this article (and at the top of the hill) was established in 1858, which appears to be around the date of the oldest graves here. On the church side of the road, the cemetery is rather new  – with the oldest graves from the early 1900s. There was a couple standing on the grounds when I pulled my car in, but they left quickly. I saw no other people during my visit. Though I did find this interesting epitaph here, the much more interesting area for me was the opposite side of the road. There, the older graves ranged from the 1850’s to maybe 1945 − a beautiful little place. Like so many other small rural graveyards I found in the area, the gates do not lock. This, fellow cemetery travelers, is always a pleasant find. 

Right at the entrance, I was surprised to find three zinc (or white bronze) memorials in a row! My personal best, as a tombstone hunter. Once in a while you'll find one or two of these in an entire cemetery, but three together was an unusual find in this geographic area. (Read more about White Bronze Memorials.)

At the base of the zinc monument in the foreground was the imprint you see below. The Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport CT had an interesting history, which you can read about in my blog link just mentioned. They created all the zinc memorials you see throughout the United States! Yep, they all came from one place. Which is why they all basically look the same. While you could choose from among a variety of funerary symbolism and have custom name imprints made, the structures are basically the same. Which is different from stone carvings you find in cemeteries.

In one of the photos above, you see the words "W. McDevitt, Elkton," engraved in the lower corner of a white marble headstone. Unlike white bronze memorials which were shipped all over the country (between 1870 and 1912), stone carvings are rather unique to the vicinity of the graveyard itself. This is pretty much the case all over. Stone is just way too heavy and fragile to ship. It also explains the great variations in stone type, sculpting and engraving styles, headstone shapes and sizes, even fonts, from one geographic region to another. You tend to see the same style headstones in cemeteries in the same geographic region. Travel fifty miles in either direction, and you're bound to start seeing differences!

Dynasty plot, with headstones engraved on walls

I roamed Boot Hill Cemetery for nearly an hour, making photographs, taking in the ambiance. Quiet. Peaceful. Like the church mice that live in the old building across the street. Lichens grew on the old marble headstones, and on the fifty-year-old seashells bordering some of the burial plots. Why do so many people put seashells on the graves of their loved ones?

Down near the wood line, there was a big old busted wooden pumpkin crate filled with old plywood and broken headstones. What was to become of them? With that to contemplate, I exited Boot Hill Cemetery and drove off into the sunset.

Lichen-covered marble headstone at Boot Hill Cemetery

Further Reading:
White Bronze Memorials blog by Ed Snyder

White Bronze Memorials

Every once in a while in my cemetery travels I’ll encounter a zinc monument amidst all the stone ones. You may have walked right past one yourself and taken it for granite (small joke there), but this light bluish gray material is actually metal. Perhaps you’ve knocked on one and noted its clanking hollowness. Sometimes called white bronze (to make them sound fancy), these memorials have a rather interesting history.

You may only find a couple of them in any given cemetery, interspersed with the hundreds of marble, granite, and slate grave markers. Their relative scarcity is due to the fact that they were only manufactured (in the U.S.) for about forty years (between 1870 and 1912). Given that the U.S. has about 330 years worth of cemeteries, forty years is not a long time. Interestingly, the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester N.Y. actually mapped out the locations of the zinc monuments in that cemetery!

Where did zinc monuments come from, you may ask? And why were they around for only forty years? Well, catalogs, and because forty years is the period of time the Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport Connecticut, was in the business of making them. That could really be the end of this blog, but you know me better than that! I can just go on and on ….

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA

(According to Samuel Orcutt in his History of Monumental Bronze) M.A. Richardson and C.J. Willard perfected the method of casting molten zinc in 1873, with the intent of using the material as funerary monuments. They ran out of money, however, and sold the process before they could bring their dream to fruition. The idea was to offer customers a cheap, yet elegant, alternative to stone. This was the heyday of Victorian cemeteries in the U.S. and all God’s children wanted fabulously ornate monuments for their family plots. Unfortunately for the eventual manufacturers, the Monumental Bronze Company (which made all of the monuments), the idea never quite caught on.

 What’s Wrong with Zinc?

Zinc Jesus on Iron Cross

Compared to marble or granite sculpture, zinc does look rather cheesy (which may have been part of the reason "white bronze" monuments were banned from some cemeteries). However, the main concern of the buying public was that zinc wouldn’t last as long as stone! Perhaps there were doubts about the manufacturer’s insistence that the metal would not rust. A hundred and forty years later, the company’s claims of longevity have certainly been borne out. These monuments seem to have weathered as well as any carved stone memorial.

“A Thing of the Past”

The monuments were actually cast, which means a mold was used (standard design or customized with names and dates created by an artist at Monumental Bronze), into which was poured molten zinc. In the case of a small flush-to-the-ground marker like the one you see at right (typically costing around six dollars), this was a one-step process.

Lawrenceville Cemetery, New Jersey

For more elaborate structures, several pieces were made, then either zinc-welded or bolted together. This way, monuments could be as large as twenty feet high. Flat packaging the sides allowed the manufacturer to easily ship the monuments to any of its subsidiaries across the U.S. Decorative plates (of mourning symbolism) could be later replaced with ones bearing the name of a future deceased family member. The design was actually much more flexible than stone carving!

Charlotte Cemetery, Rochester, NY (Dorothy Loney)

As you can see from the holes in this memorial at right, such a design unfortunately invites vandalism as well. It also brings to mind the rumor that bootleggers used these zinc memorials to hide their bottles during prohibition!

 City Cemetery, San Antonio, TX

Zinc-welding, a process perfected by Richardson and Willard, is part of the reason such three-dimensional castings as the one at the beginning of this article (in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA) have endured the ravages of time, tree branches, and ground settlement even better than stone. Part of the reason might be their weight. Some friends of mine tried to lift a fallen one to an upright position recently and were surprised at how heavy it was. Even though these monuments are hollow, zinc is actually heavier than iron! Still, some do suffer irreparable damage (its a conservator's nightmare to fix one of these), as you can see in this photo of the angel with its broken wings. 

Fountian Cemetery, Forstria, OH (Jeff Ronald)

Richardson and Willard's patented zinc-welding process has held up very well. According to Barbara Rotundo, it involved heating molten zinc much higher than its melting point and pouring it into the joint between the cast pieces. This melted the surface of the quarter-inch thick pieces and fused them more solidly than soldering would have done. This way, very large monuments could be made from smaller pieces, allowing the fine detail you see in this portrait at left. I like the caption under the relief, "FROM A PHOTO TAKEN IN 1865." Here's where my misguided sense of humor kicks in - I imagine that when the family of the deceased sent the order in to the Monumental Bronze Company, they included a photo for the artist to create a likeness for the memorial. The artist's apprentice misunderstood the instructions and cast this phrase instead of the man's name! Everything about these monuments was customizable - even if you couldn't afford a portrait, you could choose specific text and decorative interchangeable panels. Another interesting thing to notice about this particular monument is the cracking at its base. This is fairly common with larger monuments as their bases begin to buckle and crack under the enormous weight.

Evergreen Cemetery, Camden, NJ

Since zinc is actually a shiny, gleaming metal, like chrome, I wondered if the original zinc monuments were sold like this, with the chalky, dull coating appearing some months after being installed on a grave. “Left exposed to the elements the monuments rapidly form a tough and very durable skin of zinc carbonate that protects the underlying metal. The zinc carbonate is what gives the monuments their characteristic bluish gray color (ref.).” Although I would think a shiny futuristic monument would be rather cool, this, most assuredly, was at odds with Victorian sensibilities. Since the purpose of zinc monuments was to simply be an alternative to stone, it apparently was more aesthetically pleasing for them to resemble stone. Hence, the dull coating was actually created after the monument was assembled; it was delivered to its final resting place looking like it does today. 

Despite a nationwide distribution network (many companies across the U.S. were contracted to assemble the monuments, but the parts were actually poured and molded in Bridgeport), interest in the monuments died off after WWI. Part of the reason was a poor sales organization, which consisted only of catalog sales by part-time door-to-door salesmen. While the Monumental Bronze Company had a lovely catalog (view it  here as a pdf on the Association for Gravestone Studies' website), customers were expected to buy the monument sight unseen. The zinc monuments were not sold by the stone carving businesses where people would normally purchase their memorials. And not insignificantly, the U.S. government took over the Bridgeport plant for the manufacturing of munitions during the war (1914) - zinc is a key ingredient of brass (70% copper, 30% zinc), from which shell casings are made. The price of zinc tripled, probably contributing to zinc’s downfall as an economical alternative to memorial stonework.

Technology Transfer

During the war, interest in the zinc monuments died off and the company retooled to make other products. Zinc, you may not realize, plays a vital role in the process of galvanizing steel, which makes the steel rust-resistant. Though the Monumental Bronze Company couldn't predict its own demise, its processes would brighten everyone's future decades later. 

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA

While the zinc monument industry eventually disappeared, the company's zinc molding and welding processes contributed greatly to future technological advance. The anti-corrosive properties of zinc were put to use in everything from galvanized steel ductwork for your home heating system to the galvanized steel used in automobile bodies. When a certain technology is made available to others so that it may be used in more diverse ways for the common good, its called technology transfer. Did you know that molded plastic ski boots and cordless electric drills had their origins in the U.S. Space Program (NASA)?

References
Monumental Bronze Company
If you ever want to learn more about gravestones, a likely place is Association for Gravestone Studies
Monumental Bronze Company Catalog
Cemetery Monuments – White Bronze – Zinc
Cemetery Monuments Made of Zinc, Carol A. Grissom, Senior Objects Conservator, MCI (Smithsonian Museum)
Zinc Sculpture in America