Sunday Pastries With the Dead 11

An 1844-era church in New Jersey connected to an 1859 murder.

It was so cold today that I knew I’d need to visit a small cemetery, lest I suffer frostbite wandering for too long among the headstones. Even as I type, my fingertips are still extra-sensitive from having frozen and thawed a dozen or so times during my short visit to this sleepy 1844-era church. Nestled on a back road amid open farmland, the structure and its surrounding graveyard seemed painfully quaint. Little did I know that after my visit, a deep-dive search on the origins of the church’s current name would unearth a scandalous 1859 murder perpetrated by its former reverend.

Alas, that story will have to wait until next Sunday because now I have another connected location to visit. I’ve always said nothing screams “Christmas” like a juicy homicide and public execution! It’ll perhaps tide you over to know that rumor says the case inspired a murder technique in one of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies. We’ll have to make do, for now, with what I found today as I wandered, unaware, through the small plot.

The semi-crumbling church building is owned by a local historical society and is only in use for special events. Truly, I cannot sufficiently convey how very sleepy this place is—it’s in the middle of nowhere, at a four-way stop that used to denote a town that no longer exists. Imagine all the unassuming locations we tread that shield shocking stories beneath the strata of years? The idea of being somewhere notable without realizing it makes my brain itch.

Even those interred gave me no hints as to the sordid history of this place. In fact, they were downright jolly! I muttered early on about the cold and immediately received a good-natured reply that “It’s not as cold as the grave.” I sensed a wink and a sort of elbow jab motion along with the statement, which indicated its tone.

I did come across a first, here—a man named George W. Beatty buried between his wife and his consort. Technically, consort means wife—in this case, it seems the distinction was made to differentiate between Elizabeth L. Fisher Beatty, George’s first wife, and Rachel Thatcher Goecher, his second wife who married him after the death of her first husband. Elizabeth died rather young in 1858, at age 42, which is perhaps why she bears the qualifier of “consort” on her headstone.

Fun fact: George and Elizabeth’s son Daniel Fisher Beatty was a well-known piano and organ manufacturer in the late 1800s. Here are some cool old advertisements for his instruments, and here’s one of his beautiful reed organs. At one point, his aggressive mail-order tactics caused a bit of a scandal.

There’s also a truly wrenching monument to Joseph and Mary Jane Force’s five children, who died throughout the 1850s and 60s. The broken obelisk bears their names—Lizzie, William, Sarah, Edgar, and John—on three of its four sides.

I came across a few symbols, both familiar and not so, in my wanderings. The first, a new-to-me image, is pictured above on Reverend George Castner’s headstone (before you get too excited, this isn’t the murderous reverend—he’s not buried here). At first glance, I assumed the G stood for the initial of his first name, but upon further research, I learned that it stands for the Masonic G of the Freemasons (a popular fraternal organization). The top object, which looks like an upside-down V, is a compass, and the bottom object is a carpenter’s square/ruler. The “G” stands for three things: Gnosis (Greek for “knowledge”), Generations (aka: passing your knowledge down), and God.

There were also copious examples of the common (albeit very lovely) weeping willow tree symbol, which stands for grief, mourning, and the underworld. Joseph T. Gerard (pictured above far left) and Elizabeth Castner’s (above far right) are my favorites of the bunch, owing to the gorgeous shapes of the stones.

There was also a sweet example of a symbol that can be read differently depending on the headstone it graces. If the handshake appears on the stone of an unmarried man (as with John Case in SPWTD #9), it stands for fraternal brotherhood. But if it’s on the stone of someone married—such as both Charity M. and John M. Hazlett above—it signifies a marital union. It can also be read generally as God, angels, or other deceased loved ones welcoming the new soul into the afterlife—that’s why one hand is limp in the shake while the other is gripping; the limp hand is that of the recently departed.

That’s it for now—meet me back here in a week for the second installment of this Sunday Pastries locale, detailing the murder carried out by the church’s reverend.