Funerary art in Puritan New England

Funerary art in Puritan New England encompasses graveyard headstones carved between c. 1640 and the late 18th century by the Puritans, founders of the first American colonies, and their descendants. Early New England Puritan funerary art conveys a practical attitude towards 17th-century mortality; death was an ever-present reality of life,^[1] and their funerary traditions and grave art provide a unique insight into their views on death. The minimalist decoration and lack of embellishment of the early headstone designs reflect the British Puritan and Anglo-Saxon religious cultures.

The earliest Puritan graves in the New England states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, were usually dug without planning, in designated local burial grounds. They were mostly unmarked but sometimes given upright slate, sandstone or granite stones^[2] containing factual but often inelegant and blunt inscriptions. Later generations decorated their headstones with carvings, most dramatically in the late 17th century with depictions of death's head, a stylized skull, sometimes with wings or crossed bones.^[3]

Other examples show the deceased carried by the wings, which supposedly took the soul to heaven.^[4] From the 1690s, the imagery became less severe and began to include winged cherubs (known as "soul effigies") who had fuller faces and rounder and more life-sized eyes and mouths.^[3] In headstones dating from the Federalist Era, the rise of secularism saw the prominence of urn and willow imagery.