Stories Carved in Stone Photo Gallery

A West Springfield native, John Ely began carving in the 1760s, and was probably trained by William Holland or Joseph Williston. His shop was located almost directly across the Great River from Williston, a contemporary carver. With a distinctive cherub carved in deep relief on his more expensive stones, John's work can be easily identified in numerous burying grounds up and down the Connecticut River Valley.

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Joseph Williston was another Springfield carver who was very likely trained by William Holland during his short stay in the area. Williston's shop was located approximately at the end of the current Liberty Street, on the banks of the Connecticut River. A very brief carving career, ending with his death in 1768, produced a large quantity of gravestones throughout the valley.

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The Stebbins Shop produced an abundance of stones out of Longmeadow in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The Farber Collection attributes at least twelve distinctive styles to the Stebbins School. While we are still unsure of the individual carver's names, we know where they worked.

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Aaron Bliss commonly carved his gravestones from a chocolate colored stone quarried out of the Wilbraham area. His cherubs have wings which resemble a beagle’s floppy ears. In Westfield, his work also appears on red sandstone, likely originating from the Longmeadow quarries.

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The Stanclifts were one of the earliest and most influential of the carving families of the lower Connecticut River Valley. Their work extends from the late 1600s into the nineteenth century and includes five generations of carvers. The various Stanclifts worked in sandstone; that used for stones in eastern Connecticut came from their great quarry in Portland.

William Stanclift (1686-1761) was the oldest son of James I. Like his father he carved in capital letters, and some of his stones also have evenly rounded tops. William, however, produced stones with designs, including some delightful folk-skulls and Halloween-like faces. His more common stones are shouldered and have nicely executed but simple rosettes in the finials. He used the “thorn” in his legends, which James I never did. William’s stones are distributed throughout the Connecticut River Valley even into Massachusetts and also along the coastal areas of eastern Connecticut.

From: Slater, James A. The Colonial Burying Grounds of Eastern Connecticut and the Men Who Made Them. Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts & Sciences, vol. 21. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1987.

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The Thomas Johnson family worked out of the Middletown, Ct. quarries, actually called the Johnson quarries locally. Producing gravestones for over one hundred years, they heavily influenced the work of many Connecticut River carvers. The elder Thomas was one of the first gravestone carvers in the area to exhibit preplanned lettering on his stones, and the quality of his letters shows care and attention to detail rarely found on earlier stones.

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Aaron Haskins was heavily influenced by the Manning and Collins schools of carving. Based out of Bolton, Ct, he was an accomplished carver. His cherub in the tympanum of the David Olmsted stone was so unusual, we featured it on the cover of the Enfield Connecticut: Stories Carved in Stone book.

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Gershom Bartlett began his carving career in the Windsor, Ct. area, where he carved on the local sandstone. After moving to Bolton, Ct. in 1751, he began carving extensively on the local schist, quite a different texture and consistency from the sandstone he was accustomed to carving in Windsor. Even after moving to Bolton, he retained his loyal customer base in Enfield, as both sandstone and schist stones bearing his carvings can be found there.

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Ebenezer Drake carved out of the South Windsor sandstone quarries with his brothers, Silas and Nathaniel. Ebenezer was a carver who seemed to be constantly dissatisfied with his work, as he constantly moved from style to style. As he grew older, he let his imagination run more freely, resulting in stones which were often said to scare children out of the burying grounds after dark.

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The Lathrop family, consisting of Thatcher, the father, and Loring and Luther, the sons, worked out of the same sandstone quarry as the Drake brothers in South Windsor, Ct. Strongly influenced by the Mannings of southern Connecticut, they brought the popular style to the north.

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William Holland had a brief, but very influential, stay in the Springfield area during the mid 1700s. He apprenticed under Joseph Johnson, carving out of the East Windsor quarries. While working together, they gained a reputation for heavy drinking, running up large rum tabs at the local taverns. His style of carving cherubs will be seen for fifty years after he left the area.

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Ezra Stebbins began a prolific carving shop in Longmeadow, MA in the mid 1700s, and his early work bears a strong resemblance to that of William Holland.

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