Gravely Speaking

Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio

BENEATH THIS STONE

ARE INTERRED THE REMAINS

MATT’W LAWLER Esq.

OF PHILADELPHIA

BORN JANUARY 1^ST 1755

DIED JULY 14^TH 1831

MRS ANN LAWLER

HIS CONSORT

BORN JUNE 5^TH 1761

DIED MARCH 25^TH 1835

THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED TO THEIR MEMORY

BY THEIR SON DAVIS B. LAWLER IN JUNE 1850

When the enigmatic blue onyx-colored sphinx was installed at the Spring Grove Cemetery at Cincinnati in 1850, it caused a great stir.  The “pagan” iconography of the Egyptian sphinx ruffled the Christian sensibilities of the Victorians; yet, there were those who praised the monument as a break in the monotony of the usual gravestone shapes of neoclassical columns, mourning figures, flowered-adorned markers, obelisks, and Gothic pinnacles.

In the Egyptian tradition the benevolent mythological creature has the head of a man grafted to the body of a lion.  In this example, a couchant sphinx rests atop the Lawler family monument.

The Lawler sphinx was an inspiration to the related Peaslee Family of Louisville, Kentucky.  They were so taken with the monument in the Spring Grove Cemetery that they commissioned a look-alike sphinx for the Cave Hill Cemetery at Louisville.

ELLA HARPER HARBESON PEASLEE

JANUARY 30, 1903 

ELEANORA HARBESON PEASLEE

MARCH 5, 1904 

CHARLES ROWLAND PEASLEE

NOVEMBER 24, 1905

Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky

Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts

JOHN ADAMS BLANCHARD

BORN IN BOSTON APRIL 6, 1842

DIED IN FLORENCE ITALY MARCH 25, 1885

GEORGE DOYLE, HIS SON

DIED APRIL 12, 1875 [illegible] 16 MONTHS

The white marble sarcophagus tomb in the Mt. Auburn Cemetery at Cambridge, Massachusetts was designed to look like a coffin.  Though this tomb is designed to appear like a coffin it is empty—the deceased is buried beneath the marker.  The word, sarcophagus, is derived from two ancient Greek words, sarx, which meant flesh and phagein meaning to eat.  The two words together, sarkophagus, meant flesh eating.  The term came from the limestone used by the ancient Greeks to bury the dead which was thought to decompose the flesh of the deceased.

Four winged cherubs, two on each side, embellish the footed tomb.  The winged cherub was a symbol that became popular in the 18^th Century.  Winged cherubs replaced the stark and morbid flying death’s heads from our Puritan forefathers.  The cherubs have a childlike countenance of innocence.  The iconography represents the flight of the soul from the body upward to Heaven and the hope of the resurrection.

Anchor’d in the haven of Rest

In Memory of

JABEZ SMITH Jun,r

Lieu,t of Marines

On board the Continental

Ship Trumbull

Born in Groton

State of Connecticutt

August 31, 1751

Departed this Life in Boston

June 28, 1780 

The death’s head is the most common symbol in the Granary Burying Ground at Boston, Massachusetts.  There are some gravestones, however, that do have other symbols, such as the Jabez Smith Jr gravestone that depicts the ship on which he served.

HERE LYES BURIED

THE BODY OF MRS.

ELIZABETH IRELAND WIFE

TO MR. WILLIAM IRELAND

AGED 52 YEARS

DEC’D. OCT. Ye 12, 1738.

Many symbols in the graveyard are meant to remind passersby that life is short and that all will die. These images are called Memento Mori and are a call to “remember death“. The skeleton is one of these symbols. The skeleton above is holding a scythe, a weapon with which the lives are cut down in the Divine Harvest. When the skeleton is depicted with a scythe, arrow, spear, or darts, the figure is referred to as the “King of Terrors”. Here, on this gravestone in the Granary Burial Ground at Boston, the King of Terrors is depicted reclining, either taking a respite from the exhausting work of harvesting lives or resting up before his brutal work begins.