Día de Muertos, Memorial Day, Christmas -- one, maybe two days of graveside reflection? But there are many more rewarding reasons to visit a cemetery. Even when it’s not Halloween.
New Jersey’s first burial sites were private, intimate and close to home or a familiar place of the deceased. With the advent of established houses of worship, consecrated burial grounds within a churchyard were first referred to as “Grave Yards. During America’s Industrial Revolution, health concerns regarding burials and dwindling sites surrounding churches lead to less use of faith based locations for interments. Pastoral “Rural Cemeteries” and eventually close-by municipal “Urban Cemeteries” evolved and were associated with the desire for much needed recreational areas. Along with burials, cemeteries hosted events ranging from community picnics to hunting grounds and even hosted carriage races. Cemeteries served as public parks even before planning existed for “open space”. Today cemeteries have become bio sanctuaries for deer, fox, raccoons, ground hogs, Opossum, squirrels, coyotes, rabbits, bats, cats, native trees, wild plants and all manner of birds. Skip the zoo and go visit a cemetery!
Within New Jersey cemeteries, visitors may study aspects of geology, architecture, landscape design, archeology, genealogy, history, religious iconography, cultural traditions and stories of military service. But the wealth of New Jersey’s historic cemeteries also present vast galleries revealing the art and craft of stone carvers and stone masons.
Robert “Bob” Carpenter has dedicated 52 years to the preservation of the past as a master stone carver. Bob is the “go to guy” to call when grave markers are cracking, crumbling, dissolving, fading, falling over or vandalized. He has repaired, replaced and continues to restore hundreds of graveside memorials throughout northern New Jersey. His extensive work experience and diligent craftsmanship has resulted in finished projects repeatedly termed “Magnificent.”
Bob has concentrated much of his work in Bergen, Passaic and Westchester County, New York and frequents graveyards in New Milford, Demarest, Harrington Park and Bergenfield. Beside vertical gravestones, he has worked on many unique configurations in burial yards. These include the Revolutionary War tombs known as “Table,” “Box,” or “Ledger” graves of General Robert Erskine set in Ringwood Manor Cemetery and General Enoch Poor located in Hackensack’s First Dutch Reformed Church, aka the "Old Church on The Green” (est. aprox. 1700.)
Bob Carpenter did extensive work to discover and repair 95 gravestones within Gethsemane Cemetery in Little Ferry which opened in 1860 as a burial ground for African-American residents. Within the Wyckoff Reformed Church Cemetery, he repaired 150-200 graves including 55 that were vandalized. But he has a particular affinity for preserving what he terms “Grandpa Stones” or non-professional grave markers. These “unsophisticated but beautiful” grave markers would have been carved by a family member using common, home made tools on vernacular fieldstones, set onto a fresh grave during the grieving process of a loved one.
Carpenter has also created new gravestones by replicating original designs and lettering from 18th Century master carvers. One of the most visited grave stones in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is the Hulda of Bohemina marker. This is a beautiful example of Bob’s inspiration to use a common late 18th Century motif of professional stone carver John Zuricher who was active from1740 to 1770s. As the top of he headstone is a carved “soul effigy” showing a sad or smiling winged face representing the soul lifting up to eternity. Other common professional symbolism employed carved images of cherubs, angels, death heads, skulls, crossbones, urns, willow trees, hour glasses and floral designs.
Professional stone carvers sporadically autographed their work near the bottom of a stone. And sometimes the carver ran out of space to inscribe the required information or had to make a correction or addition to a stone’s text or font spacing!
To understand the sacred beauty in local cemeteries please see New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones: History in The Landscape co-authored by Preservation New Jersey Board Members Richard Veit and Mark Nonestied. It is the most outstanding reference for “reading” the art and craft within NJ cemeteries.
During childhood, Robert Carpenter always gravitated toward projects that involved working with his hands. At 24 he halting an engineering career with ATT and moved to Germany to attend the State Woodcarving School in Oberammergau (Bavaria.) He then became the only American accepted at the Master School For Stone Sculpture, Carving and Technique in Frieburg Germany.
Besides Bob’s outstanding cemetery work, his portfolio also includes carving and repairing tombs, mausoleums, crypts obelisks and cenotaphs. But he is also a highly trusted institutional sculptor and stone carver having completed intensive work on St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fordham University, New York Public Library and The Jewish Museum. Right after 9-11, he was sought out for 2000 sq ft of restoration work on the historic Verizon building damaged as the World Trade towers fell. Today, Bob Carpenter’s continual zest for history has lead him to become the chief organizer for the Bergen County based Revolutionary War Table and its long running lecture series.
Amazing story about cemeteries and Bob's accomplishments. We can only hope that he is teaching someone this craft and handing down an art.
Great information and profile on Bob!