Hi all,
Here is a link to "The True Image: Gravestone Art and the Culture of Scotch Irish Settlers in the Pennsylvania and Carolina Backcountry":
Nice find. I haven’t yet compared to our "Early American Arms" pages, but maybe there are some here that could be added.
I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed this book. There are several threads on the topic of the Bigham carvers.
Most of the arms depicted and described in the book are decorative, rather than traditional. Joe has recorded many of them in the early American arms roll, but be forewarned that there is little evidence that any of the arms depicted on these tombstones were used as arms by the deceased.
As Joe has remarked before, the really intriguing thing about these gravestones is that they were carved for members of the Scotch-Irish communities in North Carolina who were overwhelmingly Whigs during the Revolution. The inference being that there was no apparent dissonance between those with strong republican values embracing heraldry.
Professor at UNC describing Charlotte as the "back country." Got news for him: Chapel Hill circa 1800 wasn’t exactly America’s answer to Renaissance Florence.
Joseph McMillan;105384 wrote:
Professor at UNC describing Charlotte as the "back country." Got news for him: Chapel Hill circa 1800 wasn’t exactly America’s answer to Renaissance Florence.
No, but Hillsborough - 12 miles from Chapel Hill - was the capitol during the Revolution.