apprentice in various family trades under the guidance of established craftsmen. Throughout the eighteenth century, gravestone-making remained at the forefront of this traditional training, and its practitioners eventually proliferated in a vast, sparsely populated land. Due in great part to colonial isolation, a folk grave vernacular originated. Scores of stone artisans evolved stylistically from within each regional workshop, insulated for the most part against intrusive academic influences. A nurtured indigenous art form thus bloomed for over a century in an unparalleled climate of creativity. It is marveled at nowadays, and puts to shame the impersonal standards of today's mass-produced grave markers.
Ipswich, Massachusetts, 1776. The striking stylization of the mother's garments in this grave portrait almost obscures the acrving of the infant.
For Further Reading Benes, Peter. The Masks ofOrthodoxy. Folk Gravestone Carving in Plymouth County, Massachusetts 1689-1805. Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 1977. Caulfield, Ernest. Monographs on various New England stone-carvers in the Bulletin ofthe Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Connecticut. Duval, Francis Y. and Ivan B. Rigby. Early American Gravestone Art in Photographs. 200 Outstanding Examples. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1978. Forbes, Hariette Merrifield. Gravestones ofEarly New England and the Men who Made Them,1653-1800. Boston, Mas-
Malden. Massachusetts, 1787. Elizabeth Baldwin is remembered in this charming slate carving, the result of naive efforts at grave portraiture.
sachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1927. Reprints: New York: Da Capo, 1966. Princeton, New Jersey: Pyne Press, 1975. Ludwig, Allan I. Graven Images:New England Stonecarving and its Symbols, 1650-1815. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1966. Reprint: Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1976. "Markers' The Annual Journal ofthe Associationfor Gravestone Studies. Worcester, Massachusetts: AGS Pub. American Antiquarian Society, 1980. Slater, James A. and Ernest Caulfield. The Colonial Gravestone Carvings ofObadiah Wheeler. Worcester, Massachusetts: American Antiquarian•Society, 1974.
Wallingford, Connecticut, 1794. Following the Revolutionary War, patriotism fostered the appearance ofgrave portraits styled in the profile likeness of General George Washington, Founder of the New Nation.
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