Eleazor Carver (c1669-1744) and Experience Blake (1665-1746) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 21) Theme: "Tombstone"

Last week's "Travel" theme had us visiting sites associated with Joseph and Sarah (Hartwell) Carver. While in New England in 1999, we were also able to find tombstones for Joseph's grandparents Deacon Eleazor Carver and Experience Blake, my 8X great grandparents who are the subjects of this week's story.

Deacon Eleazor Carver's Stone

Both are buried in Bridgewater, Massachusetts in the First Cemetery, also known as the Old Graveyard and the Summer Street Cemetery.

Eleazor's and Experiences's stones were typical of those common at the time in New England. The shape was perhaps suggestive of the headboard of a bed symbolizing rest. It was also symbolic of the arches and portals the soul would be required to pass through en route to eternity. The rounded central portion, called the tympanum, was above the carved details of the deceased person. Either side had another rounded shoulder, often fully decorated, as were the Carvers' stones.

Tympanum for Elezaor's Stone 

To me, the most interesting part of their stones, similar for both, is the tympanum with the interesting arches (depicting Heaven-bound wings) and the rather scary Martian-like faces. This is apparently a variation of the winged death's head. In earlier times, these were clearly skulls with wings, a symbol of mortality derived from the Puritans' strong and stern religious beliefs. By the time the Carvers passed away, the skull was evolving into a winged face or effigy, with sometimes rather strange results. The other decorative motifs carved into the stones were often symbolic in the society or for the individual whose resting place was being marked, although it appears the Carvers' were perhaps purely decorative.

Tombstone for Experience (Blake) Carver "relict too Deacon Eleazor Carver"
Bridgewater, MA

Records for the lives of Eleazor and Experience can be found at Marshfield, Taunton and Bridgewater in Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts).   Experience was previously married to a man named Samuel Sumner and had  four children with him prior to his death. She and Eleazor married 11 June 1695 and  had sons Eleazor and Joseph (my 7X great grandfather) and daughters Experience and Mehitabel. 

Eleazer was generally known as "Deacon Eleazer."  His first name, rather appropriately, means "To whom God is a help." He was clerk of the First Congregational Society of Bridgewater from 1716 to 1718 and Deacon until his retirement in 1741. Throughout his life, he was very active in the church, often taking the part of pastor though there is no evidence that he was actually an ordained minister.

The tombstones for Eleazor and Experience are side by side in the Old Graveyard at Bridgewater (near the Unitarian Church). His tombstone says: "In memory of Dea'cn Eleazor Carver, Who dece'd January y 25th, 1744, in y 75th year of his age." 

And hers says: "In memory of Mrs. Experience Carver, relict to Deac'n Eleaz'r Carver, who deceas'd Jan'y 16th, 1746, in y 82d year of her age." These days, widows would bristle at being called a "relict", but that is the term often used in those days to indicate that the wife had outlived her husband. Twice widowed, I suppose Experience was twice a relict!

In the mid 1700s, average life expectancy in New England was only to the mid 30s. Experience and Eleazor both lived to very ripe old ages for their times. Their stones have also been long-lived, surviving in quite good condition for some 275 years.

Some Resources:

• Jones, William, "Robert Carver of Marshfield and Some of His Descendants" from Genealogies of Mayflower Families, Vol. I; Selected and Compiled by Gary Boyd Roberts; Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1985, p.432. Accessed online at Ancestry.com.
• Early American Gravestones.doc  accessed at website https://www.davidrumsey.com/farber/Early%20American%20Gravestones.pdf
• Mitchell, Nahum, Mitchell's History of Early Settlement of Bridgewater, Massachusetts; Bridgewater, MA., Printed by Henry T. Pratt, Published by Edward Alden, 1897 available at Google Books at this website:  https://books.google.ca/books?id=KIc-AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, pp. 130-131.