Triangular Monuments
In the Civil War photograph above, we see the fresh graves in the foreground that have no visible markers and no monuments. We also see the form of triangular mounds. When a grave is dug, the earth is set aside, the coffin (or perhaps a shroud wrapped body) is placed in the grave, and then the earth is replaced on top of the coffin. Since the volume of the coffin has displaced some earth that will no longer fit in the grave, the earth is placed above ground level.

Over time, the coffin decomposes, as does the body,1 and with the advent of rain, the earth slowly compacts downward. The triangular mound may totally disappear leaving a shallow depression. However, there was a time when it was believed that mounded earth over the grave would deter water from entering the grave. The placement of two simple slabs over the mound would even further deter the water from seeping through to the coffin.

Virginia Style Coffins

Ivor Nöel Hume writes about three flat sided coffins with peaked or A-shaped lids found during his archeological survey of Martin’s Hundred.1 Dr. Norman Barka,2 later found remnants of two coffined burials and evidence of their A-shaped lids at the Flower dew Hundred, Virginia archeological survey. Mr. Hume also notes an 1651 engraving of English gravediggers and coffins with A-shaped lids (below).

Mr. Hume credits a late eighteenth folklore enthusiast, John Brand, with the answer to the question about A-shaped coffin lids.

“Brand’s.3 notes titled ‘Pall and Under Bearers’ describe how, in the seventeenth century, each English parish possessed three of four mortuary cloths of differing materials and qualities, to be rented by mourning families to cover the coffin on the way to the grave.”

Tent grave monuments may be constructed with two slabs, either of native stone or often of concrete. Some will have headstones, and possibly footstones. Some will have neither.

Tent grave monuments may also be constructed of unfinished stone to precisely cut ashlars. Even the size of the stones will vary, and the large ashlars will have a step effect. An unembalmed adult body buried six-feet deep in ordinary soil without a coffin normally takes ten to twelve years to decompose down to a bony skeleton; a child’s body takes about half that time.

The Free and Accepted Masons is a secret organization, however their symbols are well known. While we work at getting illustrations of the symbols which may appear on burial monuments, we have included an excerpt from the “History of Nevada, 1881” by Thompson & West, p. 234. The many symbols mentioned there are tattoos on a body of a man found drowned. MASONRY ON THE PACIFIC COAST

With the Argonauts, who came in search of the golden treasures of California in 1849, were parties who, previous to leaving their homes at the East, had formed themselves into companies for either mining or commercial purposes, or both, as well as for mutual protection. Several of these organizations were comprised mainly of Masons, and had, previous to setting out upon their journey to the far West, applied to the lodges where they were made for permits, or dispensations, to open lodges and “work” when opportunity offered. These dispensations eventually became the nuclei around which some of the first Masonic Lodges of California formed.
The following incident will show that, although no lodges were organized until the spring of 1850, the brethren of the mystic tie of the Pacific Coast nevertheless forgot not their charitable duties, even among the allurements attendant upon those flush, golden times of the earlier days:
The first Masonic funeral that ever took place in California occurred in the year 1849, and was performed over the body of a brother found drowned in the bay of San Francisco. On the body of the deceased was found a silver mark of a Mark Master, upon which were the initials of his name. A little further investigation revealed to the beholders the most singular exhibition of Masonic emblems that were ever drawn by the ingenuity of man upon the human skin. There is nothing in the history or tradition of Masonry equal to it. Beautifully dotted on his left arm. In red and blue, which time could not efface, appeared all the emblems of Entered Apprentice. There were the Holy Bible, the Square, and the Compass, the twenty-four inch gauge, and the common gavel. There were also the Mosaic pavement, representing the ground floor of King Solomon’s Temple, the identical tassel which surrounds it, and the blazing star in the center. On his right arm, artistically executed as the others, were emblems pertaining to the Fellow Craft, the plumb, the Square, and the level. There were also the five columns, representing the five Orders of Architecture -- the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite.
In removing his garments from his body, the trowel presented itself, with all the tools of operative Masonry, besides all the emblems pertaining to the degree of a Master Mason. Conspicuously on his breast were the Lights of Masonry. Over his heart was the Pot of Incense. On the other parts of his body were the bee-hive, the book of constitutions, guarded by the Tyler’s Sword; the Sword pointing to a naked heart; the all-seeing eye; the anchor and ark; the hour-glass; the forty-seventh problem of Euclid; the sun, moon, stars, and comet; the three steps, emblematically of youth, manhood and old age. Admirably executed was the weeping virgin, reclining on a broken column, upon which lay the book of the constitutions. In her left hand she held the Pot of Incense-emblem of a pure heart -- and in her uplifted hand a sprig of acacia -- the emblem of the immortality of the Soul. Immediately, beneath her stood winged Time, with his scythe by his side-this cuts the brittle thread of life-and the hour-glass at his feet-which is ever reminding, us that our lives are withering away. The withered and attenuated fingers of the destroyer were delicately placed amid the long and gracefully flowing ringlets of the disconsolate woman. Thus were the striking emblems of mortality and immortality beautifully blended in one pictorial representation.
It was a spectacle such as Masons never saw before, and in all probability such as the fraternity will never witness again. A large concourse attend the burial; the impressive service of the craft was read; the sprig of acacia was dropped into the grave by the hands of men from all quarters of the globe; the grand honors were given, and the stranger was entombed in the last resting-place allotted to mankind. His name was never known.