Saint John's Cathedral

Reginald Samuel O.B.E, O.M. (Gold)
(1998)

This article in intended to document briefly some of the history of St. John's Cathedral churchyard from its inception to the present, as researched by Langford Oliver one hundred and ten years before in 1888, and by Reginald Samuel one hundred and ten years later.  But this exercise and all areas appertaining thereto is dedicated to the Almighty God whose garden it is deemed to be.  And too, since the Cathedral purports to display a certain facet of our heritage and to provide visitors to our shores with a most historical and significant symbol, it seems that due attention should be paid not only to the total edifice but also to its immediate environs - the churchyard.

The year 1989 marked the 150th Anniversary of the present Cathedral and as history records this is the third such edifice constructed on or about this same site. My own research unearthed what appears to be the brick foundation of the first wooden building, presently overwhelmed by a casaurina (willow) tree jut south of the Cathedral building and adjacent to the only north-south tomb in the yard.  The unusual positioning of this tomb had led locals over the years to suggest that its occupant, Rev. Thomas Powers had committed suicide.  That grave, incidentally, is the oldest memorial I have discovered in the grounds (1690), and its solid black marble slab still bears the words in Latin:

Hic jacet
in spem beate resurrectioni[s] depositum
Reverendi Thomae Powers.............
hanc vitam deposuit decimo quarto
die Decemb. anno domini 1698

Here lies
in hope of Blessed Resurrection the body (?)
of the Reverend Thomas Powers..........
He laid down his life on the fourteenth
day of December in the year of our Lord 1698

According to Oliver, there is no evidence to support the general belief that Rev. Powers committed suicide, and the notoriety surrounding this particular tomb is based purely on its north-south configuration.  But as rumour is wont, there is usually some iota of fact hidden within its nagging tongue.  Truth id that the Rev. Powers, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was inducted here in January 1695.  He resigned from this Cathedral and then became Rector of St. John's, Nevis where he died on 14 December 1698.

Seventeen years after his death, one Rev. John Simpson M.A. Oxon. 1709 was also inducted here on 26 May 1715.  He it was who committed suicide in 1717 and forked tongue rumour had probably twisted the incident and occasion to Rev. Powers disfavour.

That tomb is the favourite spot for the churchyard lunchers and those who like to recline on its perpetually cool dark surface.  But it is still the subject of some mystery.  One woman swore that she and her grandchild had a most unpleasant experience while sitting on it.  She claimed that the occupant distinctly rumpled violently within, almost unseating them.  She could no longer be persuaded to sit on the gentleman's tomb.  She has since gone to the great beyond and no doubt the Rev. Powers has been queried directly on the matter.

When I started the current restoration programme in 1995, it was the general belief that all the souls intered here were of European stock.  Overawed as I was by the lingering prejudice which even now pervades the age, and in spite of the fact that some of my friends tried to dissuade me from a  project of this nature, I concluded that it did not matter what complexion prevailed within the cemetery.  "We now run things", as the modern saying goes, and the course of time had obliterated in great measure the historical trauma we were forced to endure.

However, continued research had lead me to discover a list of 316 black and coloured men who, in 1830, had signed a petition to the House of Commons regarding the retention of their rights, civic and social.  From that list I was able to identify five of those families whose graves are still recognisable and that fact, apart from firing my zeal, served as a truer historical yardstick.  Even now I am puzzled that the slaves and those families that claim to be descended from gentry did not manage to pierce through the thick haze of tradition and laud such an important fact as burial in the churchyard.  I found it a bit puzzling.  Here are the twenty of those names:

At the risk of appearing prejudiced myself, I can recall that, before coming across the above list my focus was redirected soon after I began the initial work, to the story that in 1834 a black man might have been buried somewhere in the churchyard.  Apparently, his attention and fidelity to his master was of such consequence that his grateful boss felt that he deserved to rest his bones in this hallowed place., much to the chagrin of the pompous society of the day.  So I set out detective-like to solve the problem.  (I am amazed that rumour had failed to pass on that bit of information through the usual "hand-me-down" vehicle.  Arguing that he would have been tucked away in some lonely corner, I found a brick tomb, greatly disturbed, not quite east to west like the others, and the age of the bricks and other supporting minutiae seemed to me to be evidence enough that this could be the place.  All that research soon disappeared however when I found the above list.  The tomb I thought I had discovered bore no stone and I have not yet solved its mysteries.

There are some tombs in the yard which do not present any complexities and are easily read.  But some others, because of the type of stone, have had their statistics and curricula vitae hidden under years of grime which I have tried t remove.  Yet others conceal their information, perhaps to be revealed by the angle of the sun or some such trickery.  Cleaning those stones with modern day detergents was necessary.  Stones like that of William Harvey, whose marble bears the legend "Blessed are Upright", but which for many years was leaning forward and covered with dirt is now clean and back at 90 degrees.  He must indeed feel clean and happy with his present standing position.  Located south-east of Harvey and sporting a large granite memorial, the tomb of Mrs. Mary Ann Simms McKenzie now rests at the proper lateral angle after a lengthy sojourn at a rakish 60 degrees.  That tomb required a thorough restoration, from foundation upwards.  The Hon. Henderson Simon and I, with the assistance of two masons from the Public Words and a forklift from the port, were forced to employ modern technology in order to put the tomb in its original position.  A number of headstones in that section had to be repaired, and many pieces stuck together with cement and other adhesives.

A large cross which lies just west of the south door of the Cathedral was laboriously constructed there from stone which had been deposited across the churchyard by the 1974 earthquake.  In a mad labour of love, I rolled them there to form a huge icon which I planted with the evergreen ground cover nicknamed "Joseph in the Bulrushes".

That Duncan B Athill, relative of the now famous "We the Whites" Lauchland Athill was a black, blacn man is well established, and his headstone now lies on the ground in shambles.  However, it will soon be restored in concrete and marble and replaced along the walkway opposite the sculptured tomb of the Otto Bayers of Ottos estate overlooking St. John's.

There are other interesting tombs in the yard worth recording, most notably that of Frederick Cope. IT was badly eroded by the elements, but it is recorded in "Antigua & The Antiguans" that his name was disguised in an acrostic of questionable poetic quality:

There is much more that I wished I could have included in this brief article but for the restriction of time.  But let me close with just a few other examples of the rich historical data that can be gleaned for the almost three hundred graves located in the churchyard.  There is the ornate marble tomb with its Latin inscription in memory of Peter Lee (Petrus Lee), the man who gave the silver candlesticks to the Cathedral as Dean Baker has recorded in his book "Three Hundred Years of Witness".

Finally, it is an interesting fact that the lifespan of most of those interred in the churchyard was about 20 years average.  Most of them died from smallpox, and those were the wealthy ones.  IN 1716, there was grave concern in St. John's that the burial of bodies in the churchyard was an unhealthy and dangerous practice because of the rocky ground which allowed very shallow graves.

It is my intention, in due course, to produce a much more detailed booklet with appropriate drawings and photographs in which all of the graves will receive adequate attention.