As I was hanging around Trinity Cemetery in summer 2022, I happened upon the gravestone of Sidney Breese. The ornate inscription on the stone reads:
Sidney Breese June 9, 1767
Made by himself
Ha Sidney Sidney
Lyest thou here
I Here Lye
Till time is flown
To its Extremity
Note the skull with wings, a common motif in 1790s stones. We can infer that Breese designed his own gravestone, though the lettering matches many of the stones produced in the mid to late 1700s.
Born in Wales, Breese was an adherent of the reign of King James, who many believed to be a “pretender” to the throne, if I remember my high school history. After serving as a purser on a warship, which originally got him out of the country, he decided to emigrate to the colonies in 1756; he married in New York and opened a store here.
Interestingly, Breese was the great-grandfather of Samuel Finley Breese Morse, renowned painter and inventor of the telegraph and Morse Code. Morse has a monument in Central Park and an impressive gravesite in Green-Wood Cemetery.
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11/9/24
4 comments
Looks like its made of brownstone and they later had to make a cover for it
so it wouldnt rot away.
King James II had been overthrown in 1688 in the Glorious Revolution, though he gave his name (latin equivalent, Jacob) to the Jacobite cause, which supported the restoration of the Stuart dynasty in place of one branch of the Stuart family that took over, and later the Hanoverians. King James’ son, the “Old Pretender,” would be the Jacobite claimant during both the 1715 and 1745 rebellions, though King James’ grandson, Bonnie Prince Charlie, was the family member on the ground at Culloden in 1746. I imagine that Breese probably was an adherent to the Jacobite Cause in the Forty Five, hence leaving the country. Many of the Jacobite adherents would, at dinners, pointedly hold their glass over a glass of water during the Loyal Toast, signifying their loyalty to “the king over the water.”
“A common motif in 1970s stones”. Is that a typo?
You caught me.