Did you know that the state’s first marble quarry was right here in El Dorado County? The unique, blue-veined marble it produced was on par with imports from Italy or Vermont … and a lot closer. For the first few years of the Gold Rush tombstones were carved from slabs of marble shipped from either […]
Michele.Martin
Headstone Symbols: Hand Pointing Down
The hand of God is a common Victorian tombstone symbol. An index finger pointing up symbolizes the hope of heaven, but what if the finger points down? We needn’t worry about “Dear wife and mother” Fanny Eliza Bence. The downward pointing hand does not doom poor Fanny to eternal damnation. Rather, the hand of God […]
Headstone Symbols: The Urn
To Victorians, urns on tombstones represented the body as a container for the soul, which then passes on to the afterlife. Urns became popular as funerary ornaments after the Civil War. A Greek Revival swept across the US and brought the omnipresent urn with it as a symbol of structure and democracy. Victorians saw the […]
Headstone Symbols: Gates Ajar
This popular Victorian headstone symbol is found throughout Union Cemetery, located at 650 Bee Street in Placerville, CA. Its origins trace to a book titled The Gates Ajar, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Published in 1868, just three years after the end of the Civil War, The Gates Ajar tells the story of a young woman […]