JAMES DAVIS, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD

THE dead of winter is a natural time to commune with the dead and in late January I was stumbling around in St. Paul’s Churchyard, which I’ve neglected over the years in favor of nearby Trinity Cemetery. St. Paul’s Chapel itself is Manhattan’s oldest surviving building as it was raised in 1766; George Washington himself worshiped there. It’s also a notable repository of colonial rule and contains numerous interments of those loyal to the crown.

I found this stone, ascribed to what looks like “James Davis Late Smith,” who died in 1769 at age 39. There is a winged angel at the apex meant to depict the soul flying to heaven; around this time angels replaced skulls as the preferred symbol. My pal documentarian Heather Quinlan says many of the angels on these stones have heads shaped like Richard Nixon’s.

The interred’s name is simply James Davis. “Late Smith of the Royal Artillery” means he died recently (when the stone was inscribed) and fashioned materials for the British Army, as “smith” means “metalworker.” The. bottom of the stone has an epitaph that was popular at this time:

Behold and See as you Pass By
As you are Now so Once was I
As I am Now you Soon will Be
Prepare for Death and Follow Me.

In 1823 burials were banned in lower Manhattan and by 1852 below 86th Street as a preventative measure against disease, and vast areas in Brooklyn and Queens thereupon became cemeteries, many in the new concept of “garden cemeteries” to which Green-Wood, Woodlawn and Evergreens belong. More on this in Lapham’s Quarterly.

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4/15/25