Graveyard Symbols Scavenger Hunt

Sue Bennett is church administrator at Bethel United Methodist Church located on Pitt Street in Charleston, South Carolina. She directs informational tours with various concentrations around Charleston, and was kind enough to give an exclusive tour of Bethel United Methodist Church to my Charleston Beyond The Grave class. Bennett spoke of the intricate symbols that symbolized ideas to memorialize loved ones.

One of these symbols being a hand pointing downwards. This symbolizes mortality and is said to represent a secret masonic handshake.

Another reoccurring symbol I found in the Bethel United Methodist Church yard is an angel. This symbolizes spirituality and guarding to Heaven.

  

The symbol shown here is a cross surrounded by a crown, representing sovereignty of the lord.

An hourglass symbolizes the passing of time and the shortness of life.

The cloth over that is draped over this grave symbolizes mourning.

A wreathe symbolizes victory in death or redemption and dates back to the Greeks.

Roses can symbolize a multitude of things, such as, beauty, hope, or love. 

Weeping willow trees are just as meloncholy as they sound; they symbolize sorrow and mourning.

While willows were a vary popular symbol in the victorian era, the Willow and Urn can arguably be the most popular of the era. The combination represents the mourning of the deceased. 

Ivy symbolizes memory, immortality, friendship, and many more values.

An Expert Lecture from Ruth Miller On Religious History and How It Effected Grave Markers

When the Carolinas started evolving, religion was a central part of daily life, and tolerance allowed a variety of beliefs. These beliefs can be seen in the symbols and writings that encase their memorial markers. An expert on the variety of religious branching and evolution throughout the Carolinas is Ruth Miller. Recently, I had the pleasure of hearing a lecture from Miller about South Carolina's religious history and how it shaped various Charleston graveyards. Her impeccable knowledge of historic events helped explain the branching of religion, the geographical separation of the colonies, and the cultural traditions that influenced the grave styles of the eightteenth century.

Although Miller mainly focused on South Carolina's history in the lecture I attended, she seemed to be an expert on the history of many diverse gravesite locations. She began by telling the story of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, an English businessman. The Carolinas were given to Cooper, and it was his job to make the colony prosper. Since it was just beginning to be populated, He would give land as an incentive for people come live there and work. Miller even said, “Men who came were given more incentive to bring slaves than their wives.” 
From the beginning of migration into South Carolina, everyone was welcomed with religiously tolerance. Miller described it as, “more liberal than our tax laws.” And up until the Jim Crow laws were unjustly passed, African Americans could attend any church of their preference. Miller continued to described how the Protestants, who were protesting either the Catholic or Anglican churches, descended into the Puritans. While first generation Puritans were firm about their beliefs and protest, the later generations eventually died out.

            After explaining how the different religions migrated, formed, and in some cases, died out, Miller talked about their burial and grave-marking traditions. She described the evolution of skull engravings that turned to cherubs as the styles of the time period changed. She also shed light on all of the bodies buried under the city of Charleston, paved over, and forgotten; even the MUSC land plot used to be a burial ground for those who died of mass epidemics.

            Ruth Miller had a fascination that grew into a vast passion for the history of gravesites and the stories behind them, her lecture was very informative and I would highly recommend attending one!

Ruth Miller