Recording the remains of the St. Thomas’s church graveyard in Grand Turk.
Story & Photos By Duncan and Sally Hutt

He changed from the sick and sad of earth.
To a land that knows not care:
But his heart still clings to his native hearth
And the friends he loved while here
Epitaph of John Samuel Lightbourn (died 1851)

Surveying a graveyard might not be everyone’s idea of a holiday, but to us it was a break from a three month volunteering placement in Middle Caicos with the National Trust. One of the oldest structures on Grand Turk, St. Thomas’s Anglican Church (thought to have been built in 1823) stands strong, though its thick, native stone walls are battered and its cedar-shingled roof in tatters after Hurricane Ike. Even with all the damage and ragged tarpaulins trying in vain to keep the rain out it remains an impressive, if somewhat forlorn, building. Internally, the structure has suffered from the weather but there seems to be hope that the roof can be repaired and the building can, once again, become a proud part of the Island’s history.
But the subject of our attentions was outside in the churchyard where the passage of time has begun to take its toll on the older graves that huddle close around the church. Rain and wind erosion have dimmed the inscriptions on a few of the gravestones, but it is the lush vegetation and the practice in the past of letting livestock graze in the churchyard that has done the most harm. Trees have begun to grow in and around the graves, breaking some of the stones. Others are inexplicably damaged, cracked in half and separated from their other section or from the grave to which they belong.
The realisation that the historical, genealogical and cultural information preserved on the gravestones is going to continue to decay and eventually be lost forever prompted the National Museum to invite us to survey the graveyard and record all inscriptions and their locations. The timing of our arrival was perfect. The three of us (Duncan, Sally and Fraser Hutt) were available for an intensive period of about 10 days around Christmas 2010.
Surveying a graveyard was hardly our area of expertise; we were on Middle Caicos for our wildlife and countryside management skills. However mapping skills and an understanding for detail were what was really needed. In simple terms we mapped (on a sketch plan rather than a detailed measured survey) the location of the graves, gave them a unique number, carefully transcribed the inscriptions and photographed each one.
On the face of it this sounds easy but there were one or two things that made life a little harder. Firstly there was little in the way of planned order for the graves. Close and lined up graves were easy to categorise and position, outliers and scattered ones were somewhat more difficult. Secondly many of the stones were worn and it was hard to be sure of some crucial data: illegible dates, in particular, caused problems. Thirdly, the graveyard was full of spiky grass seeds that stuck to shoes, socks, laces and pretty much everything else. Fortunately only one grave inscription was in Latin as this was a particular challenge in transcription.
St. Thomas’s Church graveyard provides a fascinating, abridged and somewhat skewed “Who’s Who” view of the relatively affluent classes that held many of the high positions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. While we did not survey the newer section of the graveyard, the graves took us on a journey from 1770 to 1997. There were graves with long and complex descriptions, graves which held a poignancy that might normally be reserved for one’s own family and there were graves that revealed the merest hint of a different life.
Our database contains 138 inscriptions from the churchyard and 6 from plaques on the walls of the church’s interior (some were covered over to protect them). It would be easy to pick out the best known graves for special mention but there are many others that demanded a second look. Take, for example, Gustavus and Augusta Lightbourn with the graves of five infant children named and other small unmarked graves nearby. The family was clearly relatively wealthy, able to afford inscribed gravestones for their children but money did not prevent tragedy from striking time and again.
In another corner is the grave of Captain Harald Matthiessen from Bergen in Norway who died in 1943 and not far away Motormannen Hans Andersson from Sweden who died in March 1963: intriguing snapshots of unknown lives. A little older is the grave of Lucius Munson from New Haven, Connecticut, born 1796, who arrived from Bermuda on 4 July 1821 and died, presumably a stranger on the Islands, just 17 days later.
Few graves give details of the lives they represent, though jobs and positions are given including those of President of the Turks Islands (F H A North, whose son George Arthur is buried near the church) and Supreme Court Judge Edwin Henry Johnson, buried nearby. Reverend Joseph Maxwell, rector at St Thomas’s was presiding at funerals of others up to a few days before his death in 1864 and is buried in a grave near the front wall.
One grave that does consider the life of the deceased is the first we looked at, that of Miss Eliza Boothby, who died, aged 48, in 1849. The inscribed elegy leaves one wondering what to think: “She was a native of England but for several years resident of this island. Her intellectual superiority, varied accomplishments, bland and amiable disposition, devotion to the interests of the young, and her practical piety; will long be embalmed in the memory of all who knew her.”
Of course the famous are what many are interested in and the graveyard contains two well-known adopted sons of the Islands. First is Wade Stubbs who died in 1822. At one time his land holdings in the Caicos Islands included the famous Wade’s Green plantation on North Caicos, among others. The large marble plaque that covers his tomb is now so completely overgrown it is difficult to uncover. Its inscription is the only one to be written entirely in Latin—a final affectation by a powerful man who may himself have been illiterate? The second is Jeremiah Denis Murphy, died 1895, a larger-than-life Irish pioneer of deep sea diving who arrived in 1856 and made Grand Turk his home. The grave of his brother Andrew in an adjacent plot has collapsed inward and its marble marker is no longer readable.
The graveyard survey was not without its dangers. Many graves have collapsed and others will soon follow. The time was definitely right to make sure that the graves are properly recorded and the data kept safe in the National Museum. Hopefully our Christmas break has helped in some way to preserve a little of the Islands’ heritage and enable those researching their family to locate graves more easily in the future.