Vincent F. Luti
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Center Coordinator of the Association for Gravestone Studies, sent me a photocopy for identification, since it struck her that this might be a Narragansett Basin design. Indeed, it was, but most surprisingly of all was the identical, unique lettering of the Augustus Dexter stone! The tympanum design was a skull, to further confound matters, since the Allens were not supposed to have carved skulls, according to my research, except in the short, earliest body of work by George Allen Sr. in the 1720s, forty years earlier. Using the Dexter effigy and the striking Bolton skull for Jonadab Moor as models, a small body of work began to emerge in the most unexpected, far-flung places, remarkably restricted to the years circa 1760-1764, i.e., just when George Allen Jr. appears and disappears from the records. All of this work was clearly in the Narragansett Basin style, and, in one aspect or another, all of it had the Narragansett Basin design elements and lettering. It was consistent in the main. However, as work progressed in collecting everything possibly related to the artisan who executed the Dexter and Moor stones, a very odd thing was happening in some cases: other hands than the Dexter/Moor carver were at work on his stones, hands of other recognized carvers. So now two very difficult problems were clearly articulated: finding biographical information about George Allen Jr. and establishing and separating his work from the work of other carvers (and from imitators). Some of the detective work to establish the identity of George Jr. remains in the area of educated guesses. Although the officially documented biographical evidence for George Allen Jr. is slim, for example, tombstones themselves suggest some connections between Allen and other families in the area. For example, consider a hypothetical deconstruction of an epitaph. Wrentham, Massachusetts, records show for January 27, 1763, the marriage of a George Allen to Molly Man, daughter of Ebenezer and Mary (Gould) Man born November 16, 1745.10 George Allen Jr. would be just short of twenty years of age at this time (Ebenezer Fig. 3. Isia Bacon, 1760. Jacob Allen’s George only fifteen) and Molly Bacon, 1760. Jonathan Bacon, about eighteen. An intriguing stone 1761. Norfolk, Massachusetts. in the Pondville Cemetery in Norfolk, Massachusetts, suggests a connecting link between George Allen Jr. and Molly Man.11 It is for three brothers (Figure 3): Isaiah, Jacob and Jonathan Bacon (1760, 1760 and 1761, respectively). The skull on this stone is identical to