A Few Uses for a Dead Tombstone
A Few Uses for a Dead Tombstone
Recently there were two stories in the news about tombstones being reused in inappropriate ways: children’s grave markers used to “decorate” a country mansion and United States veterans’ headstones built into a patio. This is, of course, nothing new: the ruins of churches and monasteries, including tombs and headstones, have long been mined for useable stone to repair cottages or build walls. It was only in 2013 that a town in the Ukraine announced that it would stop using Jewish headstones as paving materials.
In most countries—the U.S. being a notable exception—the dead have only a short-term lease on their final resting places. After a certain length of time: perhaps 5 to 20 years—it varies depending on where you are—the presumably skeletal remains will be exhumed and either burned or placed in an ossuary, making room for the next generation of corpses. (The poor very often went directly to the ossuary stage, as in this previous post about composting the dead in Naples.) And when the bodies are removed, the tombstones are removed as well. What is done with this perfectly good material?
This squib gives an example of the practicalities of Italian law regarding graves:
[Milan] City law requires that a certain number of the oldest tomb markers be carted away each year to make room for new graves. The discarded markers were gathered for years by the Capuchin friars and saved to build the church. St Petersburg [FL] Times 24 September 1953: p. 2
Street repair and pavements were by far the most common uses for dead tombstones.
TOMBSTONES
Sold By an Undertaker and Used For Street Paving.
[Philadelphia, North American.]
John A. Fitzpatrick, undertaker, of 2570 Frankford avenue, secured permits for, and has just completed the removal of 706 bodies from the old burial ground behind the Third Baptist Church, in Second street, above Catharine, to Arlington Cemetery. Lewis Good, Chief of the Bureau of Public Health, is a large stockholder in Arlington Cemetery.
The Baptist Cemetery was opened in 1800 and burials have been made there as late as 1893. Many of the bodies are those of persons who died of contagious diseases. When they were dug up it was found that most of the boxes had rotted away, leaving the remains exposed to view. A factory, in which about 50 men and girls are employed, faces the church yard. One of the girls said that the scene was ghastly in the extreme, and that the odor was nauseating.
A remarkable feature of this churchyard “flitting” is that the tombstones and headstones were sold to the Alcatraz Paving Company, and by the firm used in paving League street, between Front and Second streets. Mr. Gibb admitted that the contracting undertaker had received permission to do what he pleased with the stones, but he was apparently somewhat abashed when he learned of the use they had been put to.
Whole headstones bearing the cross or “Sacred to the memory of __ ___,” or “In memory of my beloved wife, __,” or “In fond remembrance of __ __,” were dumped into the street and broken into the proper size by the ruthless laborers, while the neighbors looked on in horror. At night the children collected samples of the stone, and there is scarcely a house in League street which does not contain a piece of some lettered tombstone.
Even in the church itself the stones have been used to material advantage. In one place a footstone which originally belonged to “J.M.,” is now doing duty for a doorstep, and at another door a footstone marked “At rest” answers the same purpose.The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 13 August 1900: p. 4
This distasteful desecration, no matter how technically legal it was, could be spun into a heart-rending piece for the papers.
A TOMBSTONE FOR FLAGGING
A Curious Relic on Park Row and Its Effect on Passers-by.
[New York Evening Sun.]
A piece of the flagging in the sidewalk on Park row, near Broadway, is broken. Some stone to repair it was left at the curb yesterday. One piece, which looked older than the others, was covered with sand. A workman brushed away the sand, and was astonished to find graven deep in the surface of the stone these words:
SARAH,
Daughter of
William and Caroline Kirkland,
Died March 8, 1837
Aged 3 years 2 months.
CHARLES PINCKNEY
Son of W. and C.M. Kirkland
Died December 8, 1840,
Aged 8 months.
The piece of flagging had once been a tombstone. The workman turned its face toward the sidewalk, chiselled off its rough edges, and there is lies to-day, a reminder of the busy throng passing by of the mutability of human affairs. No one seemed to know from whence it came or where now are the graves of the two children that it marked.
It was curious to watch the effect of a view of the stone upon persons who stopped to read its inscription. A sad-faced woman, dressed in mourning, paused to look at it. Tears came into her eyes as she thought of the little, carefully attended grave of her children in Greenwood, and her face seemed to mirror the thought. “What if my baby’s grave should be desecrated like that, and is headstone carried away for a flagging?”
A young mother leading a golden-haired boy glanced at the inscription, shuddered and hurried away as if pursued by the phantom of fear. A boy smoking a cigarette and wearing the bravado air born of the fearlessness of youth spelled out the words of the epitaph and then turned to another boy and asked, “I wonder, Jim, where de kids was planted?” The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 20 August 1887: p. 14
I have threatened my family with a dreadful post-mortem vengeance if they bury me in one of those detestable fields of grave-markers flattened, not for aesthetic simplicity, but for convenience in mowing. Apparently this has long been a problem.
TOMBSTONES CARRIED AWAY
Cemetery at Toledo, O., Said to Have Been Desecrated by Trustees in Charge.
Charles Barash and Adam Geokle are terribly wrought up over the discovery that the old Fort Meigs cemetery at Toledo, O., has been desecrated and the tombstones of their dead friends have been spirited away. The men say the stones were removed by the trustees in charge of the ground because they interfered with the cropping of the grass with a lawn mower. It is understood about 200 stones have been disturbed from time to time, and the matter was passed unnoticed until a few days ago, when relatives of the dead were informed of the condition of affairs.
An investigation was instituted and many of the stones were found around at the neighboring farmhouses, where they were doing duty as paving blocks. In one instance the foundation of a corn crib was found to be built out of the purest marble bearing the date of the death of a sleeper in the old cemetery.
When the men who had removed the stones learned an investigation was about to be made they brought the slabs back and deposited them in a heap on the burial place. Many ex-soldiers repose in the beautiful ex-cemetery, and the desecration has reached the ears of the local Grand Army men, and they propose visiting the cemetery and making a thorough inquiry into the matter. Daily Herald [Biloxi MS] 27 July 1900: p. 3
The local Perrysburg newspaper went on the offensive with a lengthy article about the charms of graveyards and old epitaphs. Then they testily addressed the question of the tombstone removals.
As to the removal of head stones the explanation is that many friends of the dead have removed the stones themselves to replace them with more substantial monuments, and have left the stones in the cemetery or disposed of them to the parties furnishing monuments or have taken them to their own homes to use as they saw fit. It is claimed that no stones with anything more than initial letters of parties names have been removed by trustees, and not even then except when monuments giving the facts have bene standing over the graves.
Those implicated declare that no one has ever done anything with the intention of showing any want of proper respect for the dead or for the feelings of those who have friends buried here, and no purpose injuring in any way any person in his or her rights in the matter. It is not claimed that no mistakes have been made. There have been mistakes, but when known a fair and honourable correction has been made as far as possible and use of any stones belonging to patrons of the cemetery has never been tolerated or practiced. The people of Perrysburg cherish great pride in their beautiful cemetery and it is the one sacred spot in all the town for all the people, and they will not tolerate anything like desecration of its precincts. They wish their good name to be protected and will do all that is possible to keep it worthy of regard and respect by everybody, and desire that anyone having a grievance, to report the same to the proper authorities for settlement and not to rush into print for mere sensation to the hindrance of a just and equitable satisfaction of all concerned.
The present trustees are giving careful and prolonged attention to all matters pertaining to complaints that have been made and hope that all will soon be entirely satisfactory. The Perrysburg [OH] Journal 20 July 1900: p. 1
One of the more ingenious uses for tombstones was that of an “imposing stone,” used in print shops. This was a stone set in a wooden frame, aptly called a “coffin,” and used as a table to set up type for page forms. It needed to be perfectly hard and flat to keep the type level and even. This editor seemed to have no scruples about purloining a tombstone to keep the presses running. In an amusing reversal of the custom, I’ve seen references to editors who asked that the office imposing stone be reused as their grave marker.
He Stole a Tombstone.
Pocatello Tribune.
There is an editor in Idaho who bears the enviable reputation of being a graveyard nocturnal visitor and who sails under the euphonious title of “Tombstone Brown.”
He is the proprietor of the Moscow Democrat and following is the story they (those who know him best) tell on him: “It seems that Mr. Brown was running a small weekly paper in Missouri, or some other seaport town, and the plank he was using for the imposing stone, warped so badly one night as to “pie” a couple of forms. [“Pie” refers to jumbled or broken type. Presumably the plank warped the form out of place.] This temporarily stopped the wheels of progress and Brown’s paper; but, nothing daunted, he started out in search of another board. On his way to the lumber yard he passed the village church yard, where reposed the ashes of a number of his friends and many of his enemies; a happy thought struck him. History tells us that he never fully recovered the effects of the blow. That night accompanied by an express wagon and a blind boy he entered the silent city of the dead, and appropriated the most highly artistically finished tombstone, which he placed in his office, a substitute for the pine board. He then went to work resuscitating the remains of the forms, merrily whistling, “I’m going home to ‘pie’ no more.” [Parodies a line from “I’m Going Home (to die no more),” a popular sacred song.] In a short time the paper was ready for press and the world moved once again.
It is further alleged that the man whose grave is now unmarked and forgotten was, when living, a bitter enemy of the editor, and a veteran of the late war. We will not vouch for this tale; but, if true, it shows the relentless enterprise of a western editor, and we predict that he will “get there Eli,” though his path be strewn with libel suits and delinquent subscribers, galore. The Caldwell [ID] Tribune 23 January 1892: p. 5
One of the proprietors of the Petersburg, Va., Index, in going over the office recently, discovered that a slab used as an imposing stone was the tombstone of a near relation, who had died about forty years ago. The engraved side of the stone was downward, and how it came into use in the office is unexplained. That was rough, but not so bad as the baker who stole a tombstone for the bottom of his oven, and the next morning found that every loaf of bread had “Sacred to the Memory” on the bottom of it. The Emporia [KS] News 17 October 1873: p. 2
Larcenous bakers got slated in this next, widely circulated joke. Of course, marble has long been recommended as the best surface for working pastry.
A baker in New York stole a tombstone for the hearth of his oven. One of his customers, finding a death’s head on the bottom of his loaf of bread, ran in dismay to his deacon, fearing the end of the world was approaching. The latter was in equal trepidation, when, on examining his own loaf, he found the marrow-bones. In their alarm they had recourse to the parson, who could afford them no consolation, inasmuch as “Resurgam” was legibly set forth in bold relief upon his own loaf. Bruce Herald, 9 July 1875: p. 3
A festive use for second-hand tombstones is found in the following story. Curiously, in the view of those of us who enjoy horror novels and films, few of the desecrated stones wreaked psychic vengeance on their callous users. This is one of the rare cases where any connection is implied between reused tombstones and bad luck.
I’ve condensed the article, but it tells the story of a fellow named John Ryan who ran saloons and “variety halls” in 19th-century Cincinnati, Ohio. When he went bankrupt, the brewery that had loaned him money confiscated his saloon fixtures.
GRAVESTONES
Made the Bar Counter
Over Which For Years Beer Was Served
For the Patrons of the “White House Varieties.”
Ill Luck Ever Followed Owner of This Grim Furniture
Strange Story Recalling the Checkered Old-Time Career and Tragic End of John Ryan
Among the effects taken by the Jackson Brewery some years ago were four marble grave stones each one six feet in length and three feet in width, the rounded ends sawed neatly off. The inscriptions were, by the time the brewery secured the stones, nearly illegible, and showed plainly that some effort had been made to erase them. There is an interesting and grewsome tale in connection with these headstones. Many residents of the city remember Johnny Ryan and the notorious White House Theater he operated for some years on the lower side of Fifth street, between John and Central avenue…
The bar counter at the White House Varieties was about 25 feet in length, of highly polished marble. Over this bar for some years hundreds of kegs of beer and barrels of the vilest liquor were sold to persons who undoubtedly, drunk as they were, would have hesitated before drinking had they known for what use the highly polished marble had originally been intended.
ON “NASTY” CORNER
In 1892 John Ryan blossomed out as a saloon keeper, on Vine street, just below Fifth, in one of the ramshackle frame shanties then occupying the present site of the Carew Building. A new order of things had come—the White House Varieties had been closed by the police. The new place was an attractive one for hoboes and others of like ilk, for an enormous schooner of beer was sold for five cents. John Ryan stood behind the bar as at the White House of yore, his hard face wreathed in smiles as he raked in the nickels. The counter was of marble, four slabs laid lengthwise, and so closely did these slabs fit to one another that a searching eye was required to discover the minute cracks at the points where they joined.
Ill-fortune, however, followed Ryan like a Nemesis. He was doing a good business at the Nasty Corner when he received orders to move. The unsightly buildings were to be torn down and a magnificent office building erected. He then removed to Pearl and Pike streets, opened a saloon on the northwest corner, and fell dead in the place early in the spring of 1893, three days after he had started his new venture. Mr. Ed Cogan was then employed by the Jackson Brewery as a collector. The brewery held a mortgage on the saloon fixtures in the place and Cogan and a bookkeeper named Adam Ritter were sent down to make an inventory of the effects. The only thing of any value Cogan was able to find was the polished marble counter top. Examining it, and finding that it was of sections, he exerted his strength and turned one of the slabs over. Gazing at it with staring eyes he ejaculated:
“My God! Adam, look at this!”
A STRANGE DISCOVERY
Mr. Ritter looked at the inverse side of the stone, and at the top saw a roughly carved weeping willow. Underneath were the words:
Sacred
To the
Memory of
JAMES ____
Died March 19, 18__
May He Rest in Peace.
The remaining head stones were hurriedly lifted from the bar top and placed in an upright position against the counter, and each one bore an inscription to the memory of some one, showing plainly that the bar top had been composed of marble headstones taken from some grave yard, but by whom and when and where the stones were obtained no one knew. For years these silent mementoes of the dead, rudely torn from the heads of graves, had graced the bar of the White House Varieties; ribald songs had floated through the air and drunken men had laid their aching heads upon the cool marble to ease the throbbing pain. The stones, Mr. Cogan stated yesterday, were sent up to the brewery with a wagon load of other fixtures, and are no doubt stored away and forgotten. The names on the tombstones were all of natives of Ireland or of Irish Americans. The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 25 March 1900: p. 12
Ryan changed his name and tried to open another saloon/variety hall to recoup his losses. In the course of this he sued another brewery for defrauding him of some money.
The case was continued until the next day, and Ryan went home to his saloon at the corner of Pearl and Pike streets. A short while after reaching home he gasped, clutched at his throat and fell dead in the barroom. The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 25 March 1900: p. 12
Scarcely satisfying. We’d like to have seen him crushed mysteriously under his own marble bar counter….
Oddly enough there are few stories about tombstones being reused to mark graves. Some thieves recut stolen grave markers, although it seems a hard way to make a living.
STOLE AND SOLD TOMBSTONES
A unique swindler is operating in Susquehanna and Wyoming Counties as the reputed agent of a large granite firm. He sold tombstones at Hallstead, Great Bend and Nicholson. Some days after several stones were missing from the cemeteries and it was found that the agent had taken the stones from graves, changed the lettering, polished the granite so that it looked like new and palmed the tombstones on inspecting victims. Warrants have been issued and officers are in pursuit of the swindler. The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 9 November 1901: p. 4
The majority of tomb robbers seemed to have a personal use in mind.
Stole Tombstone for Child’s Grave.
Macon, Ga., Feb. 2. A tombstone was stolen from a marble yard here last night.
The tombstone, an artistic production, surmounted by a lamb, was found to-day in a cemetery at the head of a grave where rests the body of Henry Sike’s only child, who died recently. So the police are looking for Sikes, a middle-aged white man. They have discovered that he hired a horse and wagon last night and the wagon wheel tracks are plainly traceable from the marble yard to the grave yard.
But the police have not found that Sikes had accomplices in the theft laid to him and they cannot understand how he accomplished it unless his parental grief and his yearning to mark his child’s grave lent him the strength of a dozen men. The Bamberg [SC] Herald 8 February 1912: p. 8
A Timaru man (says the Catholic Times) stole a tombstone, obliterated the inscription, and has erected it to himself in the local churchyard. As the man from whom he stole it has discovered the theft, it is probable that a corpse will soon be ready. Oamaru Mail 13 August 1889: p. 1
Boy Steals Stone For Mother’s Grave.
Jacksonville, Fla., Aug. 11 An 11-year-old orphan boy was lodged in the juvenile detention quarters Thursday because he stole a tombstone to mark the grave of his mother. “Mother didn’t have a tombstone over her grave,” the lad told officers, “and ever since she was buried I wanted to have one. I was trying to work and buy one.” Macon [GA] Telegraph 12 August 1932: p. 12
We have to admire this husband’s dedication to his late wife, but were there extradition treaties covering the transportation of stolen tombstones across state lines?
A Sorrowing Widower
A fellow living on the Indiana shore of the Ohio river, near Vevay, Indiana, having recently lost his wife, crossed in a boat to the Kentucky side, visited a grave yard there and stole a tombstone, which he placed over the remains of his lamented better half. Public Ledger [Philadelphia, PA] 19 June 1860: p. 1
The chaos of war lent itself to tombstone recycling. The Allied press framed this practical solution to a wartime engineering problem as a “Hun” desecration. One suspects the unsentimental allied troops would have used tombstones to shore up their trenches if they could get them.
A GERMAN TRENCH
Tombstones Used by the Hun to Make His Trenches
Star 3 August 1915: p. 1
Finally, we find tombstones reused for the benefit of the young. From the cradle to the grave….
ROCKERY OF TOMBSTONES
Old English Churchyard Turned Into Playground
Monuments Made Use Of.
London. The cry of the Londoner is always for more open spaces, more parks, more playgrounds for the children of the great city’s poorer members. Recently, in order to create a playground for the neighboring juveniles, old St. Pancrass churchyard was converted into a species of recreation ground.
The place formerly tenanted with the remains of deceased citizens of St. Pancras now rings with the merry laughter of their descendants.
It was decided to form an ornamental rockery with the superannuated monuments. The work has been very tastefully carried out and the eye of the stranger and sojourner dwells approvingly on this little rockery, composed of tombstones, once the pride of the local monument mason. Washington [DC] Bee 26 May 1906: p. 6
Frankly, the illustration suggests neither “ornamental” nor “playground,” but rather “attractive nuisance lawsuit.”
This next stone at least had some educational merit as a kind of grave primer.
UTILISING TOMBSTONES
Not long ago a cottager in a village in Kyle applied to the landlord for a new hearthstone. The landlord declined to give him one, but told him there were a lot of old tombstones piled up in the churchyard, and that he ought to go and take one.
A few days later he called on the cottager, and found that he had taken the hint and also the tombstone, but that he had put it down with the lettering uppermost.
“Why did you put it down that way?” he asked rather angrily.
“Oh!” was the reply, “it does fine to teach the bairns the alphabet.” Waimate Daily Advertiser, 18 August 1900: p. 1
Other uses for a dead tombstone? Chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog, The Victorian Book of the Dead.