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| Brownstone angel grave marker, Chester Cemetery, Chester, New Jersey |
We had planned the trip a few weeks ahead of time, my friend
Frank and I. The fact that it was twelve degrees Fahrenheit the morning we set
out did not dissuade us. When it comes to art, we both realized you must
sometimes suffer. Plus, in the words of Queen Elsa of Disney’s Frozen, “The
cold never bothered me anyway” (song crescendo, crash, boom).
So off we went in Frank’s Chevy Blazer (floor heater not
working), on a three hour dead-of-winter trip to northern New Jersey. The trip
was uneventful while in Pennsylvania, though we did see a quaint church with a graveyard
around Lahaska. The early morning light was perfect. We figured we’d hit it on
the way back when the light was not so good (which is exactly what happened so
never do this!).
Eventually we crossed into New Jersey, the land of roadside
oddities. New Jersey is like an entire state filled with towns like Austin, Texas
– here a pair of yellow Adirondack chairs the size of Volkswagens, there a giant
ice cream cone ----- with a few dead deer thrown in for good measure. We actually had a destination in mind – this was not one of
my usual ramshackle expeditions, setting out with inadequate funds and no map. We
were headed for Chester, New Jersey. This is in north central New Jersey, which
is a miasma of small towns, with no major highways connecting them. But hey,
that’s why God gave us the GPS.
Frank had been up here recently on other business. While
driving through the area, he noted some interesting churchyard cemeteries and
an abandoned farmhouse that he wanted to photograph at a later date. Hence, our
trip.
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| Chester "Cemetery," with First
Congregational Church, Chester, NJ |
Both cemeteries we found were, I guess, technically
"graveyards." I recently read an article ("Difference between 'cemetery' and 'graveyard' in English") that defined each: a
"graveyard is a type of cemetery, but a cemetery is usually not a
graveyard."
"From about the 7th century, the process of burial was
firmly in the hands of the Church (meaning the organization), and burying the
dead was only allowed on the lands near a church (now referring to the
building), the so-called churchyard. The part of the churchyard used for burial
is called graveyard, ....
As the population of Europe started to grow, the capacity of
graveyards was no longer sufficient (the population of modern Europe is almost
40 times higher than it was in the 7th century). By the end of the 18th
century, the unsustainability of church burials became apparent, and completely
new places, independent of graveyards, were devised—and these were called
cemeteries." - "Difference between 'cemetery' and 'graveyard' in English"
So there you go. Both the Chester Cemetery and the Union Cemetery
were, um, graveyards next to a church. The former alongside the First
Congregational Church in Chester, New Jersey, and the latter in Califon, NJ,
along Route 513, next to the Lower Valley Presbyterian Church.
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| Union Cemetery, Califon, New Jersey |
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| Zinc memorials, Union Cemetery |
When we stopped in to explore the Union Cemetery (hey,
that's what the sign on the fence said, what can I say!), I was surprised to
see two massive, and well-preserved zinc, or white bronze memorials. These were
in wonderful condition. This “graveyard” was established in 1910, about the
time the zinc memorial craze was coming to an end in the United States. (Read more about zinc, or "white
bronze" cemetery monuments on my
Cemetery Traveler blog post, "White Bronze Memorials.")
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| Cemetery Traveler Frank in Union Cemetey |
Did I mention that it was cold that day? Maybe it reached
the low twenties by midday. I brought a few chemical pouch hand-warmers for
inside my gloves, but got lazy. Both Frank and I would jump out of his warm and
running truck to grab a few shots, thinking we’d only be out in the cold for a
few minutes. Then of course, you become intrigued with some detail – a statue
of a WWI “Doughboy,” an interesting inscription, an iron fence. Next thing you
know, you look like Frank here!
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| Marble "doughboy," Union Cemetery |
After a frigid half an hour at Union Cemetery, we drove toward
Chester to explore an abandoned farmhouse, which was brilliant in its decay. Aged ruins are a big attraction for me, especially when they offer evidence of past lives - a mirror, a crumbling piano. We
had to tear ourselves away from this after an hour or so in order to get to the
Chester Cemetery, while the light was still good. Cold winter’s day, bright
blue cloudless sky. It seems the sun is never directly overhead in the winter
months (which of course it is, but just for a short time) which makes for good
photography.
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| Evidence of lives passed .... |
We thawed out our hands on Frank’s dashboard heating vents
as we drove the few miles to Chester. While there were no extravagant statues
in Chester Cemetery (established in 1777), the iron fencing and the old stones were rather amazing. North
central New Jersey must be the cutoff point in the northeast part of the U.S.
where Colonial-era angel-carved headstones exist. North of here, they’re all
over the place. You can’t swing as cat without hitting one, as Mark Twain would
say. South of here, they are extremely rare. The reason?
The far northeastern part of North America was the first
area of the continent inhabited by the early European settlers, our immigrant
ancestors, so this is where all the early stones are. As time went on and the
population grew, it moved south and inland – along the way, burial practices
changed as did the memorials used to mark the graves.
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| 1772 brownstone grave marker with angel, Chester Cemetery |
I was particularly taken by the brownstone “angel head”
carved stones you see here. Quite typical of the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth century in the U.S. There were not many carvers at the time, and while their overall style was similar, certain details differentiated the, Note, for instance, the long nose on the angel at the beginning of this article. My knowledge of these carvings is not great, so
I was quite taken by the cloud-like thing over this angel’s head! Certainly not
a toupee, do you think? LOL. I put the question out to my friends at the Association
for Gravestone Studies (AGS). Perhaps in my next blog will be the explanation!
