IV
THE TOMBSTONE
The Charlotte Temple tombstone lies in the northern part of Trinity churchyard, between the eastern pathway and the iron fence that faces Broadway. It is a long brownstone slab, well sunk into the surrounding soil, and bears, without date or other inscription, the name "Charlotte Temple." The records of the parish having been destroyed in the fire which burned the church in 1776, and the inscription plate having disappeared from the stone before 1846, no means have been found for ascertaining the date of her death or burial. She is understood to have died when she was nineteen years old. Mrs. Rowson, however, gives her age at the time when she fled from England with Montraville as fifteen, and her death appears from the story to have occurred a year later-that is, in 1775, when, according
The absence of records has led to the growth of much skepticism among local historians as to the authenticity of stone as marking the grave of a woman from whose tragic history Mrs. Rowson's tale was drawn. In the family of Mrs. Rowson, however, a fixed belief has a ways existed that the stone in this sense is authentic. It has come down from Mrs. Rowson herself—among others through her niece, Rebecca Haswell Clark, who was a pupil in Mrs. Rowson's school — and through Ellen Haswell Osgood, grandniece, and nothing has ever shaken their faith in it. In Mr. Nason's biography of Mrs. Rowson, no question of its authenticity is raised. Nor does the writer of the sketch of Mrs. Rowson in "Appleton's Dictionary of National Biography" in any way qualify his statement that the Charlotte of flesh and blood was buried in Trinity churchyard.
Popular belief has not suffered appreciably from the skeptical views of local historians. After the lapse of one hundred and thirty years it still survives, active and potent. Pilgrimages continue to be made to the stone; flowers are reverently, tho often furtively, placed upon it, [11] and the newspapers periodically publish extended articles, giving details of Charlotte's life and death. [12] Neither the grave of Alexander Hamilton nor that of Robert Fulton successfully disputes its preeminence as the most popularly interesting tombstone in that famous burying-ground. In the autumn of 1903 a writer, seventy years old, who said he was born under the shadow of the spire of this church, had had the Battery for his play-
The persistent survival of this story the basis of Mrs. Rowson's romance must
Mrs. Rowson survived Charlotte's
The only item in the book in any way dealing with the subject is contained in a foot-note to an introductory sketch of the family of Montrésor, where it is stated, that Mrs. Rowson's father, William Haswell, was a brother of Mary Haswell, the mother of John Montrésor; that Mrs.' Rowson was the author of "Charlotte' Temple," and that she has assured her
Considering all the circumstances of Charlotte's life and death-that she was the daughter of an English clergyman, the granddaughter of an English earl, and that her father, on hearing of her forlorn condition, came to America from England, and was present at her death and funeral-what would have been more natural than that she should be buried in the churchyard of what was the most prominent Church of England place of worship in the city?[16]
It has often been said, and Mrs. Rowson's family still adhere to the statement,
Mr. Bacon tells essentially the same story. "A simple uninscribed headstone,"[18] he says, "marked the grave in 1800 when Lucy Blakeney visited it," and "Tommy Collister,[19] who had been for many years the sexton of Trinity, had no difficulty in pointing it out to the grave and stately lady in black who called upon him."
The two novels shed some interesting light on the name of Blakeney. In the second chapter of "Charlotte Temple" it is an army officer of that name who takes Mr. Temple to the Fleet Prison, and there introduces him to the unfortunate Mr. Eldridge and his daughter, the future mother of Charlotte. Blakeney does not again appear in "Charlotte Temple," but in "Lucy Temple" further details of his
We may perhaps assume that Mrs. Rowson, in writing "Lucy Temple," used the real name of Blakeney instead of resorting to a fictitious one. She might, properly have done so. It will be recalled
Among Mrs. Rowson's descendants it has always been believed that Charlotte's remains, some years after the burial, were removed to England. To reconcile this belief with the visit of Charlotte's daughter, we must assume that the remains were removed not earlier than 1800. The date of the removal has not been preserved in Mrs. Rowson's family, but the fact of the removal has been transmitted from Mrs. Rowson herself through her niece, Rebecca Haswell Clark.
Lucy never married. In 1800 she was twenty-five years old. Besides the Blakeney fortune, she now possessed a tidy sum which had come to her from her grandfather. Altogether, she was an pb n="lx"> heiress of some consequence. "Various and comprehensive schemes of benevolence," says the author, "formed the work of her life, and religion shed its holy and healing light over all her paths." Possibly we are warranted in entertaining a belief that Lucy came to New York in 1800, and, after having had her mother's remains taken up, caused the present stone to be erected as a permanent memorial of the place where, for a quarter of a century, Charlotte had lain in her last sleep.
The stone, as it appears to-day, has rectangular depression in its upper part about one foot by nearly two feet in size and perhaps an inch deep. At least sixty years ago the inscription plate had disappeared from this depression, and is understood to have been stolen and then recovered, but afterward to have been misplaced or lost. During the building of the present church edifice, which was consecrated in 1846, an engine-house, connected
It is clear from this statement that, among those who were engaged in building the new church sixty years ago, the stone was believed to mark the spot where Charlotte was buried, and that it originally contained a plate bearing an inscription. One naturally asks here, "Why
Mr. Bacon gives an account in detail of the theft of the plate. Two men, he says, visited the churchyard on a cloudy night, and with tools cut and forced away the lead which fastened the plate to the stone. As they lifted the plate from it bed, they were discovered by two watch-
Philip Hone, once Mayor of New York,
Would "Charlotte Temple" have lived
The history of most great successes in popular fiction proves nothing more conclusive than that extraneous circumstances, including mere advertising, never in themselves made a great popular success. If the full history were told of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "Ben Hur," and "David Harum," the three books which, with "Charlotte Temple," have had the largest sales known to fiction in this country, it would be revealed that the advertising
"Charlotte Temple" was published in days when book advertising, if not actually unknown, was certainly unknown in the modern sense. It made its way purely on its intrinsic qualities as a book that appealed powerfully to human interest. As for the tombstone, we must not forget that the first success of the book was won in England, among readers who could never have heard that the grave of that unfortunate young English girl existed on the western border of Broadway. Its success in that country was immediate, the sale Of 25,000 copies being extraordinary for that period-the period moreover, of William Cowper, Fanny Burney, Hannah More, Mrs. Radcliff, Elizabeth Inchbald, and Anna Letitia Barbauld.
The sole assistance the work could have had, from what in a larger sense, may be called advertising, has come from
One of the most widely read novels in the English language, and probably one of the most talked about, it still remains one of those least written about. In England (for the first two years at least), it was left unnoticed by the Monthly Review, a periodical which had for its exclusive province news and reviews of books. Nor do I find any notice of it during that period in the Gentleman's Magazine, which each month devoted several pages to new publications. Poole
The only contemporary English notice which has come to light anywhere appeared in the Critical Review for April, 1791. "It may be a Tale of Truth," said the writer, "for it is not unnatural, an it is a tale of real distress. The situations are artless and effective, the description natural and pathetic. We should feel for Charlotte, if such a person ever existed, who for one error scarcely perhaps deserved so severe a punishment." In conclusion the writer remarked that, if the story be really fiction, "poetic justice is not properly distributed"—a complaint for which we may find a satisfying answer in Mrs. Rowson's fidelity to actual occurrences.
The conclusion is irresistible that the