Understanding the different types of gravestones used throughout history can help genealogists and family historians figure out when a marker was placed. Our ancestors were likely to have grave markers made of one of the following materials depending on when they lived:
- Fieldstone
- Slate
- Sandstone
- Homemade Cement
- Limestone
- Marble
- White Bronze
- Granite
Types of Gravestones:
#1 – Fieldstone
Fieldstone was commonly used from the 1600s until today, sometimes even earlier.
Fieldstones can be one big rock or a pile of smaller rocks. The main purpose was to keep animals away from the burial remains. Piles of stones were sometimes called “wolf stones” since they were intended to keep wolves from digging up the grave.
Wooden markers were sometimes placed in the pile of rocks to mark the spot so family members would be able to find it again. At first, the wooden markers seldom had names or dates engraved but in later years, that became more common.
Types of Gravestones:
#2 – Slate
Slate was used from the 1600s to the 1900s. It usually came from the New England area in the United States.
Slate withstands weathering well but it is also porous so it sometimes breaks off in sheets.
Slabs of slate and sandstone were sometimes brought from England to America as a ship’s ballast. Then the slate was reused in cemeteries as grave markers.
Many early slate gravestones were carved with winged skull symbols. Learn more about them HERE.
Types of Gravestones:
#3 – Sandstone
Sandstone was used from the 1650s to the late 1800s. It was dark brown, light tan, or reddish, depending on the quarry it came from.
Sandstone is susceptible to having small pieces chip off and then lichen and mold grow in the open spaces, sometimes causing the gravestones to split.
Types of Gravestones:
#4 – Homemade Cement
During the Great Depression, many impoverished families made homemade grave markers from cement. The markers were made of cement poured into a wooden frame. Sticks were used to etch names and dates in the wet cement.
Sometimes, adornments of pebbles, glass marbles, seashells, and pieces from broken porcelain dishes were pressed into the wet cement. After the cement had hardened, the wooden frames were removed.
Many homemade cement markers have held up surprisingly well for decades.
Types of Gravestones:
#5 – Limestone
Limestone was popular in the Midwest from the mid-1700s to the 1930s.
Most of the limestone in the United States was quarried in Kentucky.
Families in the United States often hired Italian immigrant sculpture artists to carve their limestone grave markers because they were already experienced in carving marble. Limestone is much softer than marble so it was easy to carve.
The result was many elaborately hand-carved sandstone gravestones all across the Midwest.
Types of Gravestones:
# 6 – Marble
Marble is both strong and beautiful, and it was used primarily from the 1780s to the 1930s.
Veining in marble can be blue, white, or gray. Acid rain can make marble grainy and cause the lettering to erode.
This marble piano is the gravestone of Harry Thornton, a concert pianist. He and his wife entertained troops during the First World War.
Thornton died during the 1918 flu epidemic and is buried at Highgate Cemetery in London, England.
The epitaph on the side of the piano reads, “Sweet thou art sleeping; cradled on my heart; safe in God’s keeping; while I must weep apart.”
Following the US Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln determined that military cemeteries were needed. He chose the shape of the shield emblem and the patterns of names and regiment numbers that are still used on military headstones today.
Gravestones that are made of marble in our day are carved with lasers instead of being hand-carved.
This is the marble gravestone for Harry “Brusher” Mills (1840 – 1905) who lived a hermit’s life in the New Forest, Hampshire, England, and made his living as a snake catcher.
At about age 40, Mills took up residence in the woods in an old charcoal manufacturer’s hut. Finding that his neighbors had a problem with snakes, he started a profitable enterprise with nothing more than a sack and a forked stick.
It is estimated that Mills caught tens of thousands of snakes during his lifetime. Many of them went to the London Zoo as food for the birds of prey and snake-eating snakes.
When a national newspaper ran an article about Mills’ snake-catching profession, people began coming from far and wide to have their pictures taken with him and to listen to his stories. Mills turned this into an opportunity to advance his career as well by selling snake skeletons and snake potions to tourists as souvenirs.
Mills died homeless but loved by his community. Locals paid for a marble headstone for his final resting place in the St. Nicholas churchyard at Brockenhurst. Mills’ occupational gravestone features him dressed in his typical wide-brimmed hat and holding a stick covered in snakes.
Mills was also recognized by the community when The Railway Inn, where he was a regular customer, was renamed The SnakeCatcher in his honor.
The Peanut Lady Marble Grave Sculpture
There is a section of the Staglieno Cemetery that is reserved for the wealthy bourgeoisie – the richest of the rich. So how is it that an illiterate nut-seller has a lovely marble monument there?
Caterina Campodonico (1804 – 1881) was an independent woman who traveled from city to city selling her reste (translated as hazelnuts, chestnuts, or peanuts) necklaces made of nuts and homemade bread.
As the story goes, her family thought she was too independent for her own good – at a time when women did not own or run their own businesses – and she often felt judged by them. But she toiled away year after year.
By the age of 76, Caterina was feeling the effects of aging and fell ill. As death seemed inevitable, Caterina’s family members began arguing about how they would distribute her wealth after she died.
Caterina overheard this but surprised them all by recovering from her illness. Then – true to her independent nature – she determined that she would not leave her hard-earned money to any of them. Rather, she would commission the most prominent sculptor of the time to create a gravesite monument for herself.
Caterina asked the sculptor to carve the finest of clothing on her marble statue – the type of clothing she had never been able to wear in life.
And, like the entrepreneurs and hawkers of her day, she asked that a symbol of her means to wealth be carved as well. In her case, it was circular twists of bread and chains of hazelnut necklaces.
Her hands show the reality of her hard life. They are rough and worn from years of hard work.
Caterina’s epitaph was written by a fine poet and while it sounded better in Italian, it is still a fine tribute in English:
“By selling necklaces of nuts and sweets at the Sanctuaries of Acquasanta, Garbo and St. Cipriasso, defying wind, sun, and water coming down in buckets, in order to provide an honest loaf for my old age; among the little money laid by myself to the furthest ends of time, with this monument, which I Caterina Campodonico (called the Peasant) an authentic inhabitant of Portoria, have erected while still alive. 1881.
Oh, you who pass close to this, my tomb, if you will, pray for my peace.”
Yes, she had it erected while she was still alive! And it is said that in the months before she died, she delighted in standing next to it – in her peasant’s clothes – to listen to the reactions of visitors when they saw her likeness looking like a princess.
Types of Gravestones:
#7 – White Bronze
Most gravestones were made out of stone from the 1880s to the 1900s but some were white bronze metal. In truth, the metal was not actually “white” or “bronze”. It was actually zinc alloy. (But “white bronze” sounded better, so they went with it!)
White bronze gravestones were a less expensive alternative to marble or limestone so it quickly became very popular. They were sometimes even used for war monuments.
White bronze gravestones were sold through department store catalogs and by door-to-door by salesmen. They didn’t weigh as much as stone grave markers and could even be taken apart in sections so they were easier to ship and set in place. Not only that, but they were also much more durable.
White bronze grave markers were resistant to tarnishing and corrosion. Lichen and mold will not grow on them. Those that were placed more than 100 years ago remain legible even today.
There were many reasons that white bronze gravestones were popular, but legends say that they were especially popular with prohibition-era bootleggers as hiding places for their liquor.
Buyers snuck into the cemetery at night, opened the side panels, and left money inside the hollow “moonshine gravestones”. Later, bootleggers took the money out and left a bottle of home-brewed “hooch” for the buyer.
The designs for white bronze grave markers were virtually unlimited since the side panels could be removed (notice the little screws in the corners) and customized to meet each family’s needs.
So the next time you are at a cemetery, keep your eye out for white bronze gravestones and look for the little screws in the corners of the side panels.
As white bronze gravestones became more common, stone carvers worried that they would be out of work soon. So they petitioned cemetery managers for help. Many cemetery managers began prohibiting white bronze markers on their grounds.
You can see photos of a lot more white bronze gravestones HERE.
Types of Gravestones:
#8 – Granite
Granite gravestones were used from the mid-1800s until the present day. They are the most durable gravestones and seldom have trouble with acid rain, weathering, chipping, or splitting.
Granite colors can vary from light gray to blue, green, red, and black.
Granite is so durable that it is used not only for gravestones but for large monuments and sculptures like Mount Rushmore.
The nature of granite makes it the ideal material for carving detailed grave sculptures like this one of the Henry Thiele family.
Granite is so stable that it can be carved into lifelike images like this one patterned after Henry Thiele’s photograph.
This gravestone or “portrait in stone” of Johanna Thiele is strikingly similar to her photograph. However, there is one major difference. The granite statue has wings – angel wings – a fitting symbol for one considered to be an “angel mother”.
By the way, did you get to read BillionGraves’ blog post about Cemetery Angels? Click HERE to check it out!
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Happy Cemetery Hopping!
Cathy Wallace
Types of Gravestones: from Fieldstone to Granite
