Ruth Miller Carcass Box Talk

On February 3rd, 2020 Mrs. Ruth Miller gave an excellent presentation about the history of Charleston. She talked about the creation of the colonies, how Charleston was one of the richest places in the early 1700s-1800s, special descriptions on art on tombstones, what materials make up a gravestone, and so much more

Her reasoning behind getting into graveyards was because of a group of morticians. They were on one of her tours of Charleston and wanted to see churchyards and cemeteries, they were excited about seeing the dead. So when they got to a graveyard they started pointing out what certain things meant to her and she has been captivated ever since

She reminded us that the main reasons why Charleston was rich were because of the crops we had, which were Rice, Indigo, and Tobacco. Another reason why Charleston was so rich was because of our access to the water and our trading abilities, we traded natural resources and slaves.

Charleston was so popular because it offered religious freedom, and she told us that "it only takes seven people to start a religion" or a special community

She spoke on the portraits of tombstones. If you were rich you would have your portrait etched into stone. Some portraits were modest and depicted the deceased in classic clothing and headwear, for example, she showed us a gravestone of a woman who wore a bonnet and a dress that covered her chest area to represent modesty, but the women also showed off her pretty pearls. Then there were portraits that showed buttons, and buttons were very very valuable and represented wealth, therefore the more buttons they were wearing the more money they had.

She made a point about informing us of the structures of the tombstone themselves. She talked about how, "early tombstones are carved by people in London, England. They used slate stone and it was all hand-carved", and that there were trends in tombs. Some had wooden tombstones which she said, "wooden tombstones didn't mean you were poor but that standard was brought over from central Europe". I thought that was pretty cool because I have never seen an actual wooden grave marker except for Halloween decorations.

We looked at some etchings of the lettering and inscriptions on older tombstones and my group was assigned two from different counties in SC. Our first was a former slave who was buried near the whites which means that he was heavily resected and fortunate enough to be buried with them in the "whites opinion".

Overall, I was intrigued by her presentation and impressed by her writings and success.