Sunday Pastries With the Dead 4

A humble, humorous 1853-era churchyard in New Jersey.

Today I’m in a New Jersey community that was never officially incorporated—its first school was built in 1804, which offers an inkling of when enough folks moved here to justify creating formal group institutions. At one point the settlement boasted a milk and cream company, a peach basket factory, a hardware store, and a railway station—but its claim to fame is that, from 1904 to 1916, it was home to one of New Jersey’s best-known amusement parks. President Theodore Roosevelt even visited in 1905! The site was quarried and, sadly, no part of it remains, so you’ll just have to take my (aka Google’s) word for it.

Tucked away on what was once the community’s main street—now a narrow country road peppered with historic homes—is its old Methodist church. Situated on a shaded grassy patch with a spire that barely rises above the surrounding trees, it doesn’t call attention to itself. The historical marker out front notes that the structure was built in 1853 but "worship services were conducted in local homes and barns from 1840,” adding another nugget of information regarding the population growth of the area.

Following suit, everything about its cemetery feels understated—it contains only a few dozen headstones (the designs of which are fairly unremarkable), and none of those interred appear to have notable written histories. In fact, I feel a moment of slight panic as I stroll among the graves. What will I write about? Turns out, first impressions can be deceiving, because I shortly stub my toe on this marker…

Oh, dear. I sure hope that back when Johnson was an impressionable youth these combined words didn’t allude to what we know them as today. Because, regardless of era, one thing grade school kids are gonna do is gang up on an easy mark. I’d like to think Johnson Hummer “stepped forward” to get ahead of the laugh, and I certainly don’t want to stoop to the level of childhood bullies, but now I’m deeply curious about what his experience may have been growing up with such a name and the research drive has been activated.

Turns out, the slang use of Johnson dates back to 1863 (when Johnson was 45 and could presumably sling his own sticks and stones), and the slang use of hummer started cropping up around 1964. So I guess Johnson and I both learned a thing or two this afternoon! Bet you didn’t think you’d be taking a deep dive into dirty terminology today, huh? I CONTAIN FILTHY-MINDED MULTITUDES. Johnson has a good sense of humor, I promise. He understands the evolution (devolution?) of language.

Upon crawling out of my etymological rabbit hole, I find myself drawn to the other uniquely-named folks among the ranks, as if they’re offering themselves up alongside their friend to share in the lighthearted ribbing. There’s Johnson’s wife Eunis, and her nearby neighbor John Duckworth. According to U.S. Social Security records, 1,216 Eunices were born in 1880 (it was the 170th most popular name of the decade). Our friend (love a gal who bucks a spelling trend, by the way) was born in 1822, pre-dating Social Security collections, but thanks to the 1880 statistic we can assume it wasn’t as rare a moniker then as it is today. And Duckworth is a hybrid of the Old English words dūce (to duck) and worth/worp/worð (enclosure). So close to meaning corralled waterfowl, and yet so far. Contain your quacks, people!

Not to be outdone, there’s also Abigail Godown (“I eventually did,” I sense her saying with a cheeky grin as she points to the ground where she’s buried), the ostentatiously-named Holloway Whitfield Bosenbery (who was a private in the Civil War), and Elizabeth, wife of Naphtali Streeter. Both Holloway and Naphtali are gender-neutral names; the former means “sunken path” and the latter means “struggle.” I hope that isn’t some kind of message.

As a fascinating distraction from portended doom, I find that 100% of the Bosenbery families recorded to be living in the USA (three, to be exact) were right here in New Jersey in 1880. Could the fact that there are various other spellings attributed to the same family (Bozenbury, Boosenberry, Bosenbury) be the cause for such a meager statistic? Half of my Italian relatives dropped the pesky “a” that comes before the “u” in my last name (either by choice or by sloppy scribble a-la Ellis Island intake worker), thereby floating themselves away on an iceberg from the annals of our family history, so I’m gonna go with…yeah.

Lest you all think I’ve driven this historic name game train off the tracks into Insensitivityville, I invite you to imagine all the words that rhyme with “Calautti” (pronounced Kal-ew-tee). Booty, tooty, moody, kazooti (I don't know, either), fruity, snooty…my childhood bus rides were a teasing song-filled scourge, but I can laugh about it now. We’re all friends, here, and I appreciate this group for adding some lightness to my visit. Until next week!