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Winged Skulls and Poetic Epitaphs: The Art and Soul of New England’s Gravestone Carvers

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The decorations and epitaphs of early Puritan gravestones offer a fascinating glimpse into the religious beliefs, social values, and daily struggles of 16th-, 17th-, and 18th-century New England. These intricate designs and poignant words were not merely functional—-they were the work of skilled gravestone carvers, who were artists and craftsmen, and in some cases, even poets.

The gravestone carvers created many styles, indicative of the religious and iconic symbolism of the era. They carved intricate designs of skulls, winged angels, soul effigies with various facial expressions, flowers, vines, rosettes, urns and willows. Sometimes they even threw in even a little humor, such as the smiling, dancing skull holding a scythe on Samuel Hagar’s stone in Westminster, Mass., which can be seen on findagrave.

Many gravestones contained special a verse, or epitaph -– usually from poetry, the bible, or created especially for the deceased person.

Here is a sampling of some of the most notable gravestone carvers along with epitaphs that reflect the early New Englander’s views on death.

Gravestone Carvers of Coventry, Conn.

Jonathan Loomis (1722-1785) and his sons John and Amasa had a corner on the gravestone market in eastern Connecticut, as most of their stones can be found within 20 miles of Coventry. Many of Amasa’s stones are at Grant Hill Cemetery, both with the older style soul effigy and the newer style of urn and willow. Jonathan, John and Amasa are buried in Coventry’s South Street Cemetery.

South Street Cemetery in Coventry

The Loomis family ranged as faar as New London, Conn. Jonathan carved the gravestone of Capt.  Adam Shapley, who died in the Battle of Groton Heights in 1782. His epitaph reads:

Shapley thy deed reverse the common doom, and make thy name immortal in a tomb.

When Benjamin Case was found dead in a Coventry field in 1801.  His stone, carved by Amasa Loomis, reads,

Be ye also ready for ye know not in what hour the Son of man cometh.

 

Running Out of Room

Besides the artistic decorations, gravestone lettering had many variations. Some carvers used all capitals, and some carved deeply into the stone. Carvers who didn’t plan carefully tended to crowd words together, then squeezed a letter in at the end of a word.

John Just Geyer, a Boston gravestone carver, ran out of room on the third line of Sarah Gray Thacher’s epitaph. The wife of David Thacher, Jr., she died at 23 in 1793, probably giving birth to her third child . On her gravestone in the Ancient Cemetery in Yarmouth, Mass., her epitaph reads,

While weeping friends bend o’er the silent tomb,
Recount her virtues and her loss deplore,
Faith’s piercing eye darts through the dreary gloom
And hails her blest where tears shall flow no more.

Another famous example is the stone of Thomas Cushman carved by Obadiah Wheeler in Lebanon, Conn. This crowded inscription can be seen on findagrave (scroll down for the best image).

The Manning Family of Gravestone Carvers

The Mannings were a Connecticut family of carvers, consisting of Josiah (1725-1806) in Windham and his sons Frederick (1758-1810) and Rockwell (1760-1806) in Norwich. Several of Fred Manning’s gravestones can also be found in Bennington, Vt.

Josiah perfected the soul effigy face, depicting resurrection, according to the “New England Graves — Flight of the Soul” blog. These faces could look surprised, sad or even angry!

An elaborate stone for Huckens Storrs in the Old Storrs Cemetery in Mansfield, Conn., provides an example of Josiah’s work. It has a long inscription with some interesting spelling.

Gravestone of Huckens Storrs, who died in 1784

Six of Josiah’s children died young. No wonder his own gravestone, carved by himself in 1800, has a sad face! Further information and photos can be found at Manning Family Carvings.

Connecticut to Vermont

Zerubbabel Collins (1733-1797) was born Columbia, Conn., and died Shaftsbury, Vt. His early stones resemble those of his father, Benjamin. They feature bulbous noses, but the angel wings were smaller and sweeping downward. Zerubbabel created twisting floral designs down the sides of his stones.

Benjamin’s work resembles that of Obadiah Wheeler. The two can be distinguished by the length and width of the carved noses, according to the Bennington Museum’s Wallomsack Review of May 2012. Also, Obadiah carved deeper and used capital letters.

Gravestone carved by Zerubbabel Collins in West Cemetery, Middlebury, Vt.

Zerubbabel moved to Vermont in 1778, where he used white marble from the Shaftsbury quarry. Many of his gravestones can be found in Bennington and Shaftsbury. Some marble stones in Bennington Cemetery display the words “O, Relentless Death.”

Zerubbabel’s estate (his home, quarry, tools and three unfinished stones) were passed to son James who carried on the business in Shaftsbury.

A Cape Cod Gravestone Carver

Nathaniel Holmes (1783-1869) was the first gravestone carver to live and work on the Cape. He was born in Plymouth, Mass., and moved to Barnstable around 1805. His house and workshop are still standing in Barnstable Village.  During his long career he transitioned from carving winged heads, trumpeting angels and sunbursts on slate to carving urns and willows on marble.  The marble stones of the 19th century make up the bulk of his work.

Nathaniel Holmes carved this gravestone for Kezier Hallet, who died in 1806 at 40. She rests in Ancient Cemetery in Yarmouth.

Boston Gravestone Carvers

William Mumford (1641-1718) came to Boston as a servant with a group of Quakers who were then persecuted by Boston authorities. He married Ruth Copp and lived next to Copps Hill burying ground. In addition to carving gravestones, he also constructed the first Quaker meeting house in Boston.

His gravestones featured side borders with fruits and vines. For Elizabeth Pain’s gravestone in King’s Chapel Burying Ground, he added a coat of arms.

Elizabeth Pain died in 1704 at 52.

Nathaniel Emmes (1690-1750) learned his trade from William Mumford and then he taught his sons Henry (1716 – 1767) and Joshua (1719-1772). When not busy carving, he also ran an inn and built stone foundations, possibly including that of Old South Church in 1729, where his initials N.E. are carved in the corner.

Emmes carved an elaborate gravestone for Joseph Tapping, a young man of means, who died at 23 in 1678. It features an hourglass, a winged death’s head and a panel depicting Father Time battling a skeleton along with Latin phrases and sundry decoration.

Elaborate gravestone of Joseph Tapping in King’s Chapel Burying Ground

The Lamson Family of Carvers

Joseph Lamson (1658-1722) belonged to a large family of carvers.  He was born in Ipswich, Mass.  His father William immigrated in 1634 during the Great Puritan Migration and died in 1659, the year after Joseph’s birth. His mother, who had eight children, remarried Thomas Hartshorne, who also had eight children, which caused a dispute over the children and their rights to property.

Joseph’s carving shop began in 1677 in Malden and Charlestown. He was very prolific and many of his gravestones can also be found in Yarmouth and Truro on the Cape and in Connecticut. They feature winged skulls, eyebrows with hooked ends and side panels with vines, flowers and fruit.

Joseph Lmson carved this headstone for Lucrecia Sturgis, who died at 2 months, 13 days and lies buried in Ancient Cemetery in Yarmouth, Mass.

Epitaphs

Like the carvings themselves, epitaphs offer a glimpse into the religious beliefs and cultural attitudes toward death in early New England. Some inscriptions soften the terror of death with Christian assurances, while other acknowledge grief and the unpredictability of life.

An epitaph in Lebanon, Conn., mourns the death of Roswell Terry in 1795 at age 27.

Here Social virtue; mourns a fav,rite dead; The tear of Sacred; friendship here is Shed.

In Milford, Conn., a gravestone recounts how an amiable consort disarmed the King of Terrors:

MRS MARGARET DEWITT the amiable consort of GARRIT V H DEWITT Who closed her eyes upon a vain World…1794 Her exemplary conduct in life her unparelled patience when wreck’d with pains the most excruciating & her perfect resignation in her last illness disarm’d the King of Terrors of his sting & softened him to a Prince of peace.

Some epitaphs treat death as a transition to a happier place. Two from Connecticut are good examples. Here’s John Treat who died in 1794 in Milford, Conn.

Though Earth to Earth and dust to dust return; And Silent Sorrow Sits to guard the urn; Yet moves the Soul through Ether unconfin’d; Thrice happy state of th [sic] immortal mind… The Elect Redeemed shall wing their Aerial flight; To reign for [smudged] in the realms of light

And here’s Deacon Thomas Bosell, who died in Canterbury in 1781.

On seraph’s wings I fly; to the bright worlds above; To spend a day of endless Joy; where all is peace & love

Middletown, Connecticut: Miss Rebecca Gilbert, suddenly died in 1765, age 5:

Death armed his shaft; Unheeded & unseen; At Blooming Helth; & free up the Scene; The tender Parents; in a wild surprise; embrace their Child; & close it’s Eyes.

Epitaphs of the 18th century stometimes taunt the passerby, as does the inscription on the Groton, Mass., gravestone of Capt. Samuel Tarbell, who died in 1776.

Halt passenger as you go past; Remember time it runneth fast; My dust in narrow bounds do ly; Remember man that thou must die.

In Longmeadow, Mass.,  Jonathan Goldthwait II had a Bible inscription from James 4:14: “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vaJonathan Hnishes.”

The Old German Church and Cemetery in Waldoboro

And something different from the Old German Cemetery in Waldoboro, Maine. The epitaph for Mary Elenora Levensaler, who died in 1798, read:

Invisible I am to this blind world below.

New England Gravestone Carvers Head South

Some wealthy families of Charleston, S. C., ordered gravestones from New England, including some carved by Henry Emmes, ccording to the blog “Adventures in Cemetery Hopping.” He signed his stones as an advertisement. Later, New England carvers advertised in Charleston newspapers. An article in the Beaufort Gazette of June 20,1980, mentioned New England gravestone carvers in Charleston, including Henry Emmes.

A 1978 dissertation by Diana Combs entitled “Eighteenth Century Gravestone Art in Georgia & South Carolina” documented gravestones carved by New Englanders such as John Bull, John Stevens III, the Mannings of Connecticut, John Homer and Henry Emmes.

Today, there are a few companies who still do old-fashioned gravestone carving, such as found in old New England.

Rebecca Rector of Troy, N.Y., is a history and genealogy researcher, and retired librarian from Siena College. She has been transcribing letters and diaries for Newberry Library and National Archives for the past three years.

Images: Zerubbabel Collins gravestone by By Gravestoneman – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=154870947. Huckens Storrs gravestone By Gravestoneman – Own work,   CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=154826186.

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Early Gravestone Carvers of New England

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Early gravestones in New England were as varied as the men who carved them.  The artistic designs of the early gravestone carvers changed over time as beliefs about religion and death evolved. The oldest stones were carved on slate, featuring skulls and crossbones, the symbols of mortality. These gradually evolved, as later carvers began to suggest life and resurrection with more hopeful angels and winged cherubs. After 1800, the use of urns and willows became fashionable.

Close-up of urn and willow engraving on an early gravestone in Searsport, Maine

Here are some examples from “Gravestones & Puritanism”.

Early Gravestone Carvers

Carving often ran in families, with fathers passing their trade on to sons and grandsons. Although many learned as apprentices and sometimes copied their masters’ designs, they also developed their own artistic style.

There were hundreds of gravestone carvers throughout colonial New England. The following contains brief biographies on nine of them, with some links to gravestone images.

A Pair of Prolific Gravestone Carvers

William Buckland (1727-1795), Manchester, Conn., and Peter Buckland (1738-1816), Rutland, Vt.

William Buckland and his brother Peter were both prolific carvers, carving hundreds of gravestones in and around Manchester. They lived in the area known as “Five Miles,” named for the five-mile tract purchased from the Indians in 1672. Both brothers apprenticed with Gershom Bartlett, a well-known stone carver who created faces on his stones with bulbous noses, which the Bucklands also copied. William tended to work in sandstone while Peter more often used granite.

An early gravestone by Peter Buckland

After serving in the Revolutionary War, William moved to Poultney, Vt., in about 1783. he occasionally made some spelling errors, such as a backward p and N and he once spelled boody for body (probably the way it was pronounced!), according to “The Gravestones Carvers of Rutland County, Vermont,” edited by Margaret Jenks, 2016.

William died in 1795 and is buried in Poultney, “Captain” Peter died in 1816 in East Hartford, Conn. Click on the link to several of Peter’s gravestones.

Connecticut Carvers

James Stanclift (1639-1712), East Middletown, Conn.

James was the first permanent settler in Middletown, which later became Portland. Carving gravestones was a family occupation for generations. It included sons William and James, and James’ sons James III and Comfort. They often carved using all capital letters, as seen in these examples. James, Jr., tended to make some careless mistakes.

Obadiah Wheeler (1673- ~1749) Lebanon, Conn.

Obadiah was “one of the great early carvers of eastern Connecticut,” according to the Old Plainfield Cemetery website.  He probably apprenticed with John Hartshorne, as he used similar loops, curls and downswept winged cherubs. See a few examples here. Obadiah was another one known for some “original spelling” such as “Har Lis/Lise/Lyes”; “Fathar” and “Jenewary.” More information can be found in “The Colonial Gravestone Carvings of Obadiah Wheeler” by James A. Slater & Ernest Caulfield (click here).

A tombstone by Obadiah Wheeler

An Early Maine Carver

Bartlett Adams (1776-1828): Portland, Maine.

Bartlett was one of the first carvers in Portland, with the only shop in the area from 1800-1828. His stones were known for winged faces, rising suns and rosettes, according to the Spirits Alive website. He often advertised in the Portland Gazette. Born in Kingston, Mass., he died in Portland, Maine at age 52, buried in Eastern Cemetery.

Tombstone by Bartlett Adams on the grave of his son. It reads, The inscription reads “Memoriae sacrum/Bartlett, son of Bartlett Adams & Charlotte his wife/born July 5 & died December 30. AD 1806. Betwixt his birth & death, HOW SHORT THE SPACE?”

Another Father and Son

John Homer (1727-1803): Boston

Born in Boston, John often worked with his son William and was known for the prominent skull and crossbones on top of his gravestones. These can be found in cemeteries around Boston, Cape Cod and nearby states.

One unusual gravestone, that of Captain Tobias Lear (died 1781) found in Point of Graves cemetery in Portsmouth, N.H., combines his familiar skull and crossbones with the newer style of urn and willow. This was a very early use of the urn and willow. See the example from Sentinel Hill Press.

Besides carving gravestones, John was active in the politics of the day as a prominent member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Sons of Liberty.

Headstone of Elizabeth Hurd, by John Homer, in the Granary Burying Ground

A Much-Burdened Carver

Solomon Ashley (1754-1823): Deerfield, Mass.

Solomon led a burdensome life. He was the son of the Rev. Jonathan Ashley of Deerfield, who antagonized his parishioners with his Tory leanings and was frequently in debt. Solomon was subject to fits of insanity and was also in debt. At one point he gave up carving. Then he landed in Northampton jail, where he suffered a self-inflicted stab wound, as mentioned in the Greenfield Recorder of Sept. 16, 1805.

Solomon’s carved stones often featured haunting mourning figures, perhaps mirroring his tortured state of mind. In 1824 he drowned himself in the Connecticut River at the age of 68.

More information can be found in the book “The Outcast Artisan: The Struggles of Gravestone Carver Solomon Ashley” by Frances Davey, 1991.

A New Hampshire Carver

John Wight (1702-1775): Londonderry, N.H.

According to the Sentinel Hill Press, John Wight came to New Hampshire in 1718 as a teenager with a group of Scots-Irish Presbyterians. Instead of the usual death faces used by the Puritan carvers, he used three symbols: a coffin, a heart and a geometrical star. Sometimes there was an hourglass. He also inscribed verses such as “My body turned into dust; My dust it shall rise; In resurrection of the just; To sound Jehovah’s praise.” This suggests the Presbyterian belief in mercy and resurrection, as opposed to the oftentimes Puritan assumption of damnation.

Common Burying Ground, Newport, R.I.

Early Gravestone Carvers of Rhode Island

John Bull (1734-1808): Newport, R.I.

John Bull was a rebellious character! As a teen, he was an indentured servant in Newport to his brother-in-law, William Stevens. However, they did not get along and John ran off to sea, eventually leading a mutiny. Later, he was also a rebellious stone carver, once defiantly sculpting a biblical scene on a gravestone, which was considered unthinkable in Newport, a Quaker stronghold at the time.

In later years, he was quite creative. There is a double gravestone in Newport which includes a young daughter (died 1780) of William and Desire Tripp, and a son (died 1784) and “also his wife’s arm amputated” (1786). Bull carved an arm in the center of the gravestone! (Click here to see it.)

The John Stevens Shop

Stevens Family: Newport, R.I.

The Stevens family carved gravestones for six generations. John Stevens (1646-1736) established his shop in Newport in 1705. By 1724 he had turned his business over to his son John II (1702-1778). His carving style featured a face or soul effigy with wings. William, another son of John I, married Ann Bull, sister of John Bull (above).  The third generation included John III who carved some stones for people of African heritage. He was the only one to sign his gravestones. One stone that he signed was that of Pompey Brenton (his slave) in 1772, which featured a curly haired angelic figure. Here is further information on the Stevens family and John Bull from R.I.P. Newport.

The Stevens shop is still open today in Newport!

End Notes

Rebecca Rector of Troy, N.Y., is a history and genealogy researcher, and retired librarian from Siena College. She has been transcribing letters and diaries for Newberry Library and National Archives for the past three years.

Images: Featured image, gravestone by John Homer: By Ceoil – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81757268. Peter Buckland By Gravestoneman – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=123860118. Gershom Bartlett headstone By Gravestoneman – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=154852815. Obadiah Wheeler gravestone By CoolGuySlate – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107302977. Stevens shop By ajay_suresh – The John Stevens Shop – Newport, RI, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=110188717. Gravestone by Bartlett Adams by OldBoldLibrarian, CCO 1.0 Universal. Gravestone of Elizabeth Hurd By Rhododendrites – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84156772. Common Burying Ground By Swampyank at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17984252. Urn and willow, By DrStew82 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60506902.

 

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WHEN JUDGE CRATER WENT MISSING, ALL EYES TURNED TO MAINE

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On the evening of Aug. 2, 1930, New York Judge Joseph Crater and his wife, Stella, and their niece drove from their cabin on Great Pond for a night on the town at Belgrade, Maine.  Great Pond was one of the Belgrade Lakes, a chain of seven lakes in central Maine north of Augusta, where  the Craters were long-time seasonal residents.  That evening they went bowling and saw a film at the movie theater.

At one point, Crater excused himself to make a phone call, most likely from the public telephone in town.  When he returned to his wife and niece, he said something had come up, requiring him to make a quick trip to New York City.

Stella was surprised to hear this because he had just returned from the city that very morning, and he had planned to spend the next three weeks in Maine.

The next day, Crater took the overnight train to New York from Belgrade Lakes station. He promised to return to Maine by the following week in time for Stella’s birthday.

Belgrade railroad station, circa 1940

Stella never saw him again.

His sudden disappearance dominated the news for weeks and became part of the national folklore.  “To do a Crater,” was slang for disappearing.

The Mercurial Rise of Judge Crater

Joseph Crater was only 41 years old when he went missing, after a meteoric rise in New York politics.  Early in his law career he cast his lot with Tammany Hall, the corrupt Democratic political machine that controlled politics and the courts in New York City. The Tammany machine provided lawyers like Crater with lucrative public offices and influential clients. He caught the attention of political leaders in New York, including Gov. Franklin Roosevelt, who nominated him to fill a vacant position on the New York Supreme Court in 1930.  The New York State Senate unanimously agreed.  [Note: the New York Supreme Court is not the state’s highest judicial body, it is actually a trial court].

New York County Courthouse

He and Stella met while he was still in law school at Columbia; they married in 1917.  As her husband’s career blossomed, and his association with Tammany Hall deepened, the couple enjoyed the spoils of his success: a maid, a chauffeur, a Cadillac, an apartment on Fifth Avenue and the cottage in Maine.

Judge Crater’s Fifth Avenue apartment building

But there was something else.  Crater was a notorious womanizer.  He enjoyed the nightlife of Manhattan, often visiting nightclubs and speakeasys in the company of show girls and actresses. He was known around Broadway as “Good Time Joe.”  And he also had a longtime mistress, Connie Marcus, to whom he sent support checks since 1924.  In fact, he sent her a check from Belgrade Lakes on Aug. 2, 1930, the day before he left Maine to return to New York.

Return to New York

Once in New York, Crater seemed to carry on as usual.  He told his maid that he wouldn’t need her services at the Fifth Avenue apartment until Thursday, August 7, the day after he planned to return to Maine. He went to work in his office on Monday, lunched near his office building, and visited his doctor.  That evening he went to a play, followed by a night on the town at a club frequented by gangsters.  He lunched with colleagues on Tuesday, and later that night he played poker at a friend’s house.

By Wednesday, the August 6, Judge Crater’s behavior changed.  His law clerks described him as taciturn, unlike his gregarious self. He spent part of the morning riffling through papers in his office and removing two briefcases of documents, which he transported to his apartment.  He also asked one of his law clerks to cash two personal checks for him for substantial amounts.  Oddly, he told one clerk he was heading to Westchester to swim.

That night, he ate at one of his favorite restaurants, where friends later told police that he seemed “nervous,” “disturbed” and “depressed.”

Judge Crater Last Seen

Crater was last seen getting into a cab in Manhattan after eating dinner on the night of August 6, 1930. As the days went by with no word, Stella back in Maine grew increasingly worried about her husband. Her birthday came and went, but still no Joe.

Incredibly, for the next month, nobody reported Judge Crater missing!  Stella called several of her husband’s associates, and although nobody had seen Crater since August 6, they all assured her everything was fine and Joe would eventually show up. Most likely, they were worried that reporting him missing might affect his election campaign for a full term on the New York Supreme Court coming up in November.  That is, assuming he turned up alive.

Neither the police nor the public learned of Crater’s disappearance until September 3, when newspapers got wind of the story, a month after he left Maine to return to New York.  That’s one month of the trail turning cold.

Newspaper from around the country followed the missing Judge Crater story

On September 6, Stella, still in Maine, filed a missing person’s report with the New York Police Department (NYPD), and was visited the following day by a detective from the NYPD for informal questioning.  Stella during this time was distraught and bedridden.

Focus on Maine

By now, Crater’s disappearance became a national craze.  Sightings of the judge were reported in upstate New York, Vermont, Quebec, Maine, California and Arizona.  Many of these sightings were followed up by detectives from the NYPD, and all proved fruitless.

Maine, of course, was a logical search site, given Crater’s long-standing association with the state as a summer visitor.  Also, several witnesses who interacted with Crater in New York City between August 4 and August 6 later testified that he told them he would return to Maine after his business in New York was complete.  And there was his promise to Stella that he would return to Maine in time for her birthday on August 9.

The Portland Press-Herald reported on September 5 that Crater was suspected to be hiding at a cottage on Long Pond, one of the Belgrade Lakes chain, but that proved unfounded.

Later, reporters staked out the Craters’ cottage, based on a rumor that he would make an appearance there, but reported no sighting of the jurist.

The Kennebec County Attorney launched a grand jury investigation, and dispatched Capt. Joseph F. Young, Jr., the deputy chief of the Maine State Police, to Belgrade Lakes on September 19 to search phone records and to interview neighbors.  When Young appeared at the Crater cottage, two NYPD detectives had already arrived, conducting an unannounced interview with Mrs. Crater.  This rankled the Mainers, who apparently resented this intrusion on their turf.

Kennebec County, Maine. Great Pond is upper left.

The Judge Crater Case Closed

By September 23, the county attorney closed the case, as it pertained to Maine, pointedly telling the district attorney in New York that the still distraught Mrs. Crater was in no state for interviews. He also said the New York detectives sent earlier to interview Mrs. Crater should provide any information the New York DA might need.

Stella was clearly an uncooperative witness.  Her refusal to appear before the New York grand jury so irritated the DA there that he accused her of impeding the investigation.  But there was little he could do but complain.

An Enduring Mystery

Stella remained in Maine for the rest of the year, leaving the cottage in October for a hotel in Portland. The case and public attention now centered in New York.

By Jan. 9, 1931, a grand jury in New York issued a final inconclusive report about Crater’s disappearance and dismissed the jurors.  Crater would never be found, his disappearance a forever mystery.

Three years later, newspapers were still covering the story.

Stella stayed at the cottage at Belgrade Lakes throughout the summer of 1931, and the following year got a job as a telephone operator.  Strapped for cash, she was evicted from the Fifth Avenue apartment, but was able to hold on to the Maine cottage.  She eventually remarried in 1938, a year before Judge Crater was officially declared dead.  She and her new husband spent summers in Belgrade Lakes and winters in Waterville, before going their separate ways.  Leaving Maine forever, Stella moved to Brooklyn in 1950, and died in upstate New York in 1969.

End Notes

James F. Lee, the author of this story, is a freelance writer and blogger whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, and AAA Tidewater Traveler Magazine. He can be reached at www.jamesflee.com.

Sources:

Finding Judge Crater, Stephen J. Riegel, Syracuse University Press, 2022, accessed via Hoopla, 2/18/2025; Vanishing Point: the Disappearance of Judge Crater and the New York He Left Behind, Richard J. Tofel, Ivan R. Dee Publishing, 1957, accessed via Internet Archive, 3/2/2025; Portland Press Herald, (Portland, Maine), Sept. 5, 20, 24, 1930, and Biddeford-Saco Journal,  (Biddeford, Maine), Sept 11, 1930, accessed via Newspapers.com, Feb. 16, 2025.

Images:

Judge Joe Crater, half-length portrait, seated, facing front. , 1930. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2001695145/.

40 Fifth Ave., Crater’s home. New York Fifth Avenue, 1930. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2004670149/.

Crater photo, circa. 1925, Anonymous from https://news.lafayette.edu/2011/04/14/looking-back-new-novel-suggests-fate-of-judge-joe-crater-class-of-1910/ {{PD-US}}; “Mystery Still Veils,” Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.), 02 Nov. 1930. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063730/1930-11-02/ed-1/seq-12/>;

“Link Mystery,” Lewiston Evening Journal, Nov. 15, 1933, p.1.  (Courtesy of Belgrade Historical Society, Belgrade, Maine); Belgrade Depot, (Courtesy of Belgrade Historical Society, Belgrade, Maine); Kennebec County map, (2025) Kennebec County Map, Maine – US County Maps.

New York County Courthouse By wallyg – Flickr.com, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1222205.

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The January Thaw: Something To Look Forward To, Sort Of

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This story about the January thaw is an excerpt from the New England Historical Society’s recent book, “New England Weather.”

Meteorologists will tell you the coldest cold in New England happens when high pressure in Canada pushes air from the North Pole into the region—the “Siberian Express.” It can drop temperatures well below zero for several nights and keep them below zero during the daytime.

But unlike other parts of the country, New England has intense cold snaps that don’t last long—usually a day or two. Another consolation during the bitter weeks of winter is the January thaw. It’s a climatic singularity—a climate event that occurs every year at about the same time. The January thaw happens nearly every January, usually between the 21st and the 25th. Temperatures will rise then throughout the region.

What Causes the January Thaw?

Many meteorologists believe a change in the pattern of winds in the upper atmosphere causes the January thaw. The high-pressure system over Bermuda strengthens, raising temperatures in New England. Then the polar high intensifies, bringing back winter.

The record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in New England was set in a place that creates its own nasty weather—the White Mountains. Their highest peak, Mount Washington, recorded a temperature of minus 50 on Jan. 22, 1885.

Mount Washington

The mountain, known as “home of the world’s worst weather,” has recorded temperatures as low as 8 degrees–in June. Its mean annual temperature is near 26 degrees. Mount Washington also averages 254 inches of snow every year.

For a while, Mount Washington owned the record for the highest wind speed in the world. On April 12, 1934, observers recorded a gust of 231 mph—and lived to tell about it.

No January Thaw Here

Northern Vermont is no slouch when it comes to cold weather, either. The tiny town of Bloomfield tied Mount Washington’s minus 50 record on Dec. 30, 1933.

Prohibition had ended that month, which may have stopped the smuggling of booze across the line from Canada, a little over 20 miles away. So, on that cold December day, Bloomfield residents could warm themselves with a shot of brandy—legally.

Winter in Vermont

Vermont can also claim a distinction for variability. The Lake Champlain region in northwestern Vermont has the greatest daily variation in temperature in the country.

Meanwhile, the town of Norfolk, Conn., has been called the “Icebox of Connecticut.” It recorded the coldest official temperature in the state on Feb. 16, 1943, at minus 37 degrees.

“A chilly spot,” is how a New York Times reporter characterized the town in a Feb. 14, 1988, story. “It is the place where the snow is said to be deeper, the temperatures lower and the winters longer than elsewhere in Connecticut.” Norfolk also gets the most snow in the state during an average year—107 inches.

Subzero temperatures happen rarely in Rhode Island—typically, one day a year or not at all along the coast. Most of the interior gets maybe five days a year of below-zero temperatures. But in cold winters, the southwest part of the state can get as many as eight below-zero days. In fact, the coldest temperature ever recorded in Little Rhody was minus 28 on Jan. 17, 1942, in Richmond, a few miles inland in southwest Rhode Island.

Brrrrr

As you might guess, a town in northern Maine matched Mount Washington and Bloomfield, Vt., for the coldest temperature ever recorded in New England.

The thermometer read minus 50 degrees on Jan. 16, 2009, in Clayton Lake, an unincorporated village in Aroostook County, Maine. That was two degrees colder than the coldest temperature ever recorded in the state. So cold, in fact, that it triggered two meetings of the state’s Records Verification Committee.

The committee brought together people from an alphabet soup of government agencies. They included the National Weather Service (NWS) in Caribou, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Augusta, the Maine state climatologist, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) in Ithaca, N.Y., and the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

A New England backyard in winter

An instrument at Maine’s Big Black River station for the USGS had recorded the record low arctic temperature. The climatologists then challenged the reading and had several instruments tested. In the end, the Records Verification Committee unanimously voted to accept the minus-50-degree verdict.

That’s Variability

Chester, Mass., can arguably claim to have the most variable seasonal weather in New England. The small town on the eastern edge of the Berkshires spent an unusually cold Sunday watching the Los Angeles Raiders trounce the Washington Redskins in the 1984 Super Bowl. Los Angeles scored 38 points, Washington scored 9 and Chester scored a record minus 40 degrees.

Chester is also one of only three U.S. municipalities that recorded the hottest and coldest temperature in its state. On Aug. 2, 1975, known as New England’s Hot Saturday, the mercury rose to 107 degrees. That’s higher than the highest recorded temperatures in the Florida cities of Miami, Orlando and Tampa. Mount Washington also set its own record for high temperatures that day—70 degrees.

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Read more about how New England’s wild weather affected the course of history in New England Weather by the New England Historical Society. Click here to order your copy today.
 

Images: Vermont in winter: By Vermont – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79902314. Backyard winter scene, By EgorovaSvetlana – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=143483562.

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The Mic-Mac Hockey Stick: A First Nation Creation

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A 150-year-old hockey stick made by the Mi’kmaq people sold at auction for $2.2 million in 2006. The Mi’kmaq designed and manufactured the first commercial hockey stick. For decades, the Mic-Mac hockey stick dominated the international hockey stick market.

But if the Mi’kmaq invented the modern hockey stick, the question arises: Did the Mi’kmaq invent hockey itself?

The Mic-Mac Hockey Stick

When Europeans first made contact with the Mi’kmaq, they had lived for 10,000 years along the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to Boston. They spent spring and summer hunting and fishing on the coast, then moved inland for the cold months. They traveled by canoe and snowshoe. When Europeans arrived, they focused on fur trapping and trading.

Miꞌkmaq Women Selling Baskets, Halifax, Nova Scotia, by Mary R. McKie c. 1845

By the 19th century, the Mi’kmaq sustained themselves by farming and selling handcrafts. They made pick handles for coal mines, canoes and snowshoes. Mi’kmaq women made baskets and moccasins.

Then in 1863, a company called Star Manufacturing Co. in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, began buying the hockey sticks from the Natives in bulk. Star Manufacturing distributed them as the Mic-Mac hockey stick. After hockey exploded in popularity in Canada in the 1890s, it became the best-selling hockey stick internationally.

Mi’kmaq men made most of their livelihood from carving hockey sticks. They made so many hockey sticks they depleted local supplies of ironwood (also known as hornbeam). The Mi’kmaq then turned to the yellow birch, a hard wood much like ironwood. They carved the sticks from the root and trunk of the trees, which made them exceptionally durable.

By 1927, the Mi’kmaq were still the experts at making hockey sticks, according to the department of Indian Affairs for Nova Scotia. Their supremacy didn’t last long. By the 1930s, machines made hockey sticks.

As of 2023, about 67,000 Mi’kmaq people live in the Canadian Maritimes, with 9,245 claiming to speak the Mi’kmaq language. About 1,500 live in the northeastern Maine towns of Presque Isle and Limestone.

Origins of Ice Hockey

Written accounts from the 18th century describe Mi’kmaq stick-and-ball games like hockey on land and on ice. The Mi’kmaq called the game they played on ice “Oochamkunutk.”

But the English, Irish, Scots and Dutch also played games on ice with sticks and balls since at least the Middle Ages. Paintings from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries show Europeans on ice skates with sticks and balls.

17th-century Dutch painting, “Winter landscape, with skaters playing IJscolf,” by Hendrick Avercamp

From there, few agree.

According to one account, the boys of Kings College School in Windsor, Nova Scotia, invented hockey as we know it today.

According to another, British soldiers brought hockey to Canada.

A story in “Vancouver 2010 Official Souvenir Program” recounted how soldiers played it to stay in shape and ease their boredom.

The British [English] played bandy, the Scots played shinty and golf, the Irish, hurling, while the Dutch soldiers probably pursued ken jaegen. Curiosity led some to try lacrosse. Each group learned the game from the others. The most daring ventured to play on skates. … Hockey is the conclusion of all these beginnings.

A Mic-Mac Hockey Stick Carver Weighs In

Cheryl Maloney, a political science professor from the Sipekne’katik First Nation community, believes her people invented ice hockey. Her grandfather, an expert stick carver known as “Old Joe” Cope, in 1943 wrote a letter to a newspaper claiming the Mi’kmaq started it all.

“Long before the pale faces strayed to this country, the Mi’kmaqs were playing two ball games, a field game and an ice game.”

Nova Scotia hockey historian David Carter calls himself Hockey Holmes Heritage Detective, having researched the history of hockey. He told CBC News he’s more comfortable calling the Mi’kmaq the “roots” of ice hockey.

Mi’kmaq making hockey sticks from hornbeam trees (Carpinus caroliniana) in Nova Scotia about 1890.

The $2 Million Mic-Mac Hockey Stick

The $2 million stick was hand carved from ironwood and curved at the end. Made of one piece of wood, it looked more like a field hockey stick than today’s version. That it lasted as long as it did testifies to its durability.

Another pricey Mic-Mac hockey stick belongs to the Canadian Museum of History, which paid $300,000 for it. Called the Moffatt stick, it dates to 1830, where a Mi’kmaq craftsman carved it from a sugar maple tree on Cape Breton Island.

Mark O’Neill, museum president, said it was worth every penny. “Hockey is Canada’s game,” he said. “We developed it and we cherish it like no other country in the world.”

Mic-Mac Hockey Stick Adopters

An amateur team of Mic-Mac hockey stick enthusiasts, The Rideau Hall Rebels, popularized hockey throughout Canada and Europe during the 1890s. The sons of the Governor General of Ottawa, Lord Stanley, belonged to the team. The full name of the team – the Vice-Regal and Parliamentary Hockey Club – suggests the status of the members. They were young men on the rise and included a future governor of Madras, law clerk to the Senate of Canada, the British ambassador to France and a Member of Parliament.

The Rideout Hall Rebels with their Mic-Mac hockey sticks.

Organized in 1884, the team, based in Ottawa, took its name from Rideau Hall, the governor general’s residence. The governor general himself, Lord Stanley, and his wife, became ardent hockey fans. Back then, regional teams played for championships, but Canada had no national championship.

The Stanley Cup

In 1892, Lord Stanley commissioned the “Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup” for the top-ranked amateur team in Canada. In 1915, the two professional hockey leagues agreed that their respective champions would play each other each year for the Stanley Cup. Not until 1947 did National Hockey League champions compete for the Cup.

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Image: Stanley Cup: By Alex Goykhman – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44669468.

 

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Early New England Lighthouses–Cursed, Tragic and Presidential

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One of the very first things the U.S. Congress ever did was to put the federal government in charge of lighthouses.

The freshmen Congressmen understood the importance of maritime shipping. The new republic’s economic well-being depended on international trade—which would also pay congressional salaries. Import duties would underwrite nearly 90 percent of the new government.

Federal Hall, Seat of Congress, 1790 hand-colored engraving by Amos Doolittle, depicting Washington’s April 30, 1789, inauguration

On March 4, 1789, in New York City, the first U.S. Congress met for the first time in the newly christened Federal Hall. It had just been remodeled into something grander and more American than its previous incarnation as New York’s City Hall. French architect Pierre L’Enfant added another story, a portico and a balcony held up by Doric columns. An eagle perched in a pediment above the balcony, holding 13 arrows in its talons—one for each new state.

Madison Argues for Lighthouses

Lawmakers first set tariffs on imported goods. Then they established the Customs Service.

A Virginia congressman named James Madison believed the United States had to make its harbors, ports and coastal waters less terrifying to foreign shippers. One obvious solution was to build lighthouses to warn mariners away from dangerous shoals and to guide them to safe harbors in stormy weather.

James Madison

And so, Madison persuaded his colleagues on Aug. 7, 1789, to pass the lighthouse bill. It turned the responsibility for lighthouses over to the federal government.

At the time, 12 lighthouses stretched from Massachusetts to North Carolina. Massachusetts had started to plan the 13th—Portland Head Light in the District of Maine, which then belonged to Massachusetts.

Washington Takes on Lighthouses

The federal government assumed control of the unfinished Portland Head Light. President George Washington then took an interest in its construction, unusual, perhaps, for a Virginia planter. He hired two masons who lived in Portland (then Falmouth) to build the lighthouse. He warned them the federal government didn’t have a lot of money, and he gave them careful instructions. They were to build the tower from stone they found in the fields and seashore nearby, and they were to haul the stones on a drag pulled by oxen.

Portland Head, by Edward Hopper. Cape Elizabeth, Maine, 1927, courtesy Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Portland Head is still standing, a testament to either two Maine masons or one Virginia planter or both.

Unlucky Boston Light

Boston already had a lighthouse—Boston Light on Little Brewster Island. It was the first built in the United States and the first to be rebuilt. During its first hundred years it brought bad luck to almost everyone associated with it.

John George, a prominent Boston shipping merchant, was its first victim.

George asked the Massachusetts General Court on Jan. 3, 1713, to build a lighthouse “for the Direction of Ships & Vessels in the Night Time bound into the said Harbour.” George got his way, but he died on Nov. 24, 1714, before construction even began. His widow buried him in another man’s tomb and later married Cotton Mather.

Boston Light

The next victim of Boston Light was George Worthylake, the first keeper.

On Nov. 3, 1718, Worthylake’s boat capsized while he was returning from church to Little Brewster Island. He drowned along with his wife, his daughter and three men. A 12-year-old Benjamin Franklin wrote a ballad about the drownings called “The Lighthouse Tragedy.” He peddled it on the streets of Boston. The triple headstone of the Worthylake family is in Copp’s Hill Burying Ground.

More Troubles for Boston Light

Several days after the Worthylakes died, Robert Saunders was appointed to take care of Boston Light until the General Court should appoint a new lighthouse keeper. Two weeks later, Saunders and another man drowned close by the lighthouse.

John Hayes was foolhardy, brave, desperately broke, or all three. He took the job as the next keeper of Boston Light. He managed to survive it, though with some difficulty. A fire broke out and Hayes was blamed for negligence. His salary was withheld until he made his case and was reinstated. Another fire later damaged the tower, and lightning struck it several times. The invention of Franklin (the lightning rod) was eventually deployed, despite puritanical objections to tampering with God’s will.

Things went smoothly for Boston Light for the next 40 years until the British blew it up in June of 1776. But the colony rebuilt it in 1783, and it is now the second oldest in the United States. It was also in 1998 the last to be automated.

The Twin Lighthouses of Thachers Island

Massachusetts had two other lighthouses on Thachers Island, but they got torn down during the Revolution.

Thacher Island rises a few feet above sea level about a mile and a half off the coast of Cape Ann. The 50-acre island is mostly rock, but loosestrife, bittersweet and staghorn sumac thrive in its thin soil. Terns nest on the island, and so do cormorants, while large herring and black-backed gulls swirl above, dropping their crab dinners on the granite below. Butterflies flutter among the mint, and the salt air carries the scent of bayberry and honeysuckle. 

Under the surface of the waters around Thacher Island lurks the deadly Londoner Reef. Hundreds of Boston-bound ships came to grief on that rocky shoal, so many that mariners clamored for navigational aids to mark the danger. In 1771, two 45-foot lighthouses were built on Thacher Island. They came down four years later because Cape Ann patriots thought they helped the British more than they helped their own side. Thacher Island remained lighthouse-less until 1861, when twin towers, 124 feet high, rose again. They remain there to this day.

Twin lighthouses on Thachers Island

The Most Tragic of the Lighthouses

Minots Ledge Light rises dramatically from a tiny outcropping of ledge one mile off the Massachusetts coast near Cohasset and Scituate. Its beacon flashes in a 1-4-3 cycle, the same number of letters in “I love you.” Hence the nickname “Lover’s Light.”

It was first built after more than 40 vessels wrecked on Minots Ledge between 1833 and 1843. Lighthouse inspector I. W. P. Lewis reported a lighthouse was greatly needed there because of the “heart-rending disasters that happened every year.”

Capt. William H. Swift of the United States Topographical Bureau agreed. But he hesitated. Could a thin granite cylinder anchored to such a tiny speck of ledge withstand the wind and the waves?

Original design for Minots Ledge Light

Swift proposed something radical: cement nine iron pilings into the rock and build the lantern and the keeper’s house on top of them. He reasoned the waves would break harmlessly through the uprights. But he underestimated the strength of gale force winds.

It took two years to build the lighthouse, as workers could only work in calm weather and low tide.

Finally, it was finished, staffed and lit. The first keeper’s cat jumped to its death, panicked by the dramatic swaying of the tower during a storm. The keeper, Isaac Dunham, wrote that a storm in March “makes the light reel like a Drunken man.” He asked the government to strengthen the tower, but the government ignored him. Dunham quit 10 months after he started the job.

‘God bless you all’

John Bennett took Dunham’s place, confident in the safety of the tower. Then he changed his mind. On April 16, 1852, a fierce nor’easter pounded the lighthouse. During a lull at the beginning of the storm, Bennett rowed across to the mainland. His two assistant keepers, Joseph Wilson and Joseph Antoine, remained. The lighthouse began to reel with sickening frequency, but the keepers kept the lantern lit and the bell ringing.

Sometime around midnight, surging waves snapped off the central support to the tower. Next, one of the eight iron stilts broke off, then another. At 1 a.m., the residents on shore heard the keepers pounding the lighthouse bell furiously. Then, in a desperate effort to stay alive, they jumped into the sea. Joseph Wilson managed to grab on to Gull Rock, but he died of exposure. Joseph Antoine’s body washed ashore at Nantasket.

Two days later a Gloucester fisherman found a message from the keepers in a bottle: “The beacon cannot last any longer. She is shaking a good three feet each way as I write. God bless you all.”

The Second Minots Ledge Light

It took five years to build the replacement, a tower of stone this time. It took two years just to finish the iron framework. But the work crew had to start over after a storm flung a sailing barque against the structure.

Workmen then excavated a circular 30-foot trench in the rock. It would hold the foundation stones 2 feet below the low tide mark. Work could only be done in low spring tides when the sea was smooth and the winds were dead calm—about three to five weeks each year.

Design for the second Minots Ledge Light

Meanwhile stonecutters in Quincy, Mass., cut seven massive granite blocks for the foundation. They chiseled interlocking dovetails into each stone, so it fit perfectly with the next stone. Stone laying began in July 1857 and took a year to finish. Once the foundation rose above the high tide mark, work went faster. The new 100-foot-tall Minots Ledge Light was first lit on Aug. 22, 1860. It has survived every storm since. Sometimes an enormous wave breaks over the top of the tower, perhaps breaking a window.

In 2007, divers placed a memorial plaque on the ledge near the lighthouse to memorialize the two lighthouse keepers killed in the line of duty.

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Read more about how New England’s wild weather affected the course of history in New England Weather by the New England Historical Society. Click here to order your copy today.

Images: Boston Light by By Dpbsmith, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1663166. Cape Ann Twin Lighthouses By Tim Pierce – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11762002. This story was updated in 2025.

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