The Cemetery Photography of Vince Payavis

"I take photos, it's what I love to do. I will photograph anything, but cemeteries are one of my favorites. It's like having a beautiful art museum all to myself. It may be cliche' to say it, but I love the serenity. I feel I'm passing on unseen and unknown art to anyone who cares enough about these photos to take a look." - Vince Payavis

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Vince Payavis has quite the photo album on Flicker – his photographs of people, vehicles, landscapes, and abandoned sites are all very interesting. Crisp quality, wonderful composition. He does, in addition, have an album of cemetery photography. I thought you might be interested in seeing his work. Vince and I knew each other in high school – the last time we’d seen or spoken to each other was 1976!

In April of 2020, I was on Facebook and noticed that a friend of mine who I attended high school with, happened to be friends with Vince. That, as they say, was a blast from the past. So I dropped him a line. It was good to see he was still alive. Once he vetted me and realized that I had all this cemetery photography stuff on my page, he invited me to view his Flickr album of same.

I was quite taken by his images, and decided to share some with you - with Vince’s approval, of course. I always find it interesting to see other photographers’ visions of the same scenes that I’ve photographed. While I’m not sure that I know the locations of all his cemetery scenes, I did recognize two in particular – Hollenback Cemetery in Wilkes-Barre, PA and Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Hollenback I’ve been to many times, as Wilkes-Barre is the general vicinity in which I grew up. I think Vince lives in the area now; I’m in Philadelphia, about a hundred miles south. I still have relatives around Wilkes-Barre so I visit often. Maybe when COVID-19 allows for social interaction, we’ll actually meet up sometime.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery – near Tarrytown, New York, is a place I only visited once, about a year ago, so Vince’s images are as vivid to me as a freshly dug grave. Especially this one of Washington Irving’s headstone. It's kind of a spooky place. You really expect the Headless Horseman to come galloping over its hills!

I rather like the effects Vince uses to create his unique visions of what he sees. The images are masterful, and not overpowering. When I try to do this sort of thing with photo-editing software, the result looks like I banged on the image with a hammer. So I can appreciate his subtle use of the ghostly swirls in the sky. Nicely done.

Vince and I shared quite a few common interests in high school – friends, avant garde music, etc. So, forty-five years later, it was a bit startling to find that we'd both developed this additional common interest. An odd interest, as you'll aggree. He and I have not communicated a great deal about his photography. I don’t know what kind of camera he uses or his photo editing software. Maybe I don’t want to know, they're just tools, right? It’s sometimes enough to just look at and enjoy the art, without knowing how it was created. The art and architecture in Victorian-era graveyards has its own singular beauty. What makes it even more enjoyable is when someone uses it as a springboard to realize a new artistic vision.

Click here to see Vince Payavis' Flickr album.

Flesh off the Bone

Some friends of mine were fortunate enough to visit Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown, New York last week. I’ve seen the photos and I must go there! Looks like a fabulous place. Washington Irving’s grave is there, of, course – the author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The headless horseman idea got me thinking about another odd, though true Halloween-appropriate tale. While not as riveting as the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, it nonetheless involves missing body parts.
 

Read more at Amazon.com

I came across this story just a couple years ago when reading Allan Heller’s book, Philadelphia Area Cemeteries. The story concerns Mad Anthony Wayne, one of George Washington’s maniacal generals, a person to whom we owe our independence from Britain. Wayne is buried in St. David’s Cemetery in Radnor, Pennsylvania (near Wayne, PA, out side Philadelphia). Well, actually only half of him is buried there.

General Anthony Wayne (ref.)

Wayne's “fiery temper and battlefield bravado,” says Heller, earned him the title of “Mad,” and there was nothing he would not do to further the cause. His greatest triumph “was the capture of the nearly impregnable British fort of Stony Point, New York, in 1779 - "the beginning of the end of the American Revolution." (ref.). When General George Washington asked the brash general if he would be willing to attack the enemy stronghold, Wayne supposedly replied, ‘Issue the orders, sir, and I will lay siege to Hell.’” Now THAT’s patriotism. Or perhaps insanity. Or both.

American assault on British at Stony Point, NY (ref.)

"Mad" Anthony Wayne monument, Radnor, PA

When you’re standing in a graveyard, it is weird enough knowing that the bones of people are buried beneath your feet. And most of us assume there was flesh on those bones at the time of burial. However, Mad Anthony Wayne only had his bones buried at St. David’s Cemetery in Radnor, Pennsylvania. What happened to the flesh, you may ask? Or you may not think to ask (who would?). Well, this is such a juicy, creepy story that we must not let it go the way of Purgatory and Pluto - we must keep it alive. 

When Wayne died in 1796, his body was buried at Fort Presque Isle near Lake Erie, his final military post. according to UShistory.org, “He was buried in a plain coffin, his initials and date of death driven into the wood using round-headed brass tacks, at the foot of the blockhouse's flagstaff on garrison hill.” Twelve years after his death (1808), Wayne’s son Isaac decided that his father should be buried in the Wayne family plot at St. David’s (this graveyard actually pre-dates the Revolutionary War, having been established in 1715). So he traveled to the military base and paid to have his father’s body exhumed. He was met with a grisly surprise - twelve years after General Anthony Wayne’s death, his body was still intact! Remember, there was no embalming until much later, during the Civil War. (Embalming only became widely popular after Abraham Lincoln's embalmed body traveled from Washington, D.C. to Illinois, where at every train stop, thousands witnessed this new wonder of preservation.)

St. David's Churchyard Cemetery, Radnor, Pennsylvania

Isaac Wayne's "sulky" (ref.)

So an actual body presented a problem, as Isaac had only brought a small horse-drawn cart (known as a sulky) to carry the remains back to Chester County, PA, a 400-mile trek. A local physician, Dr. James Wallace (who had actually been at Wayne’s dying bedside), proposed to boil the flesh off Wayne’s bones, and give the bones to Isaac to be taken away. The flesh and the General’s uniform (along with Wallace’s surgical instruments) were reburied under the flagpole at the military base.

Then Isaac began his return journey, with his father's bones in a box in the back of the carriage. Along the rough road from Erie to Radnor, diagonally across the state of Pennsylvania, the box fell off a few times, supposedly scattering bones here and there. In 1809, the remainder of Mad Anthony Wayne’s bones were buried in the Wayne family plot you see in my photographs here, in Radnor, Pennsylvania. The story goes that every year on New Year’s Day - Mad Anthony Wayne’s birthday – “he rises from his grave at St. David’s and rides all the way across the state, looking this way and that for his missing parts.” (ref.)

Standing in St. David’s Cemetery, you are certainly tempted to believe this. The place has a “Sleepy Hollow” feel to it, and is a bit spooky in many ways. It’s old, it’s surrounded by woods, and seems to be away from civilization. The stone walls separating the nearby farmers' fields were standing while the War was being fought. You feel the spirit of the Revolution here. During a visit to this quite little graveyard last winter, I witnessed a fleeting spectral appearance inside the small church near Wayne's grave. I invite you to read about it in one of my prior blogs, "Anchored Souls in St. David's Cemetery." 

Happy Halloween!

References and Further Reading:

Wayne Buried in Two Places

The Two Graves of Mad Anthony Wayne

The Assault on Stony Point

 Sleepy Hollow Cemetery website

St. David's Episcopal Church website