By: Dannie Cooper, 2013
On our way home, we stopped in Tarboro to visit the Tarboro Calvary Episcopal Church. One of my travel mates had seen pictures of the cemetery online and wanted to explore it in person. I didn’t have many expectations going to the church yard. I figured it was another old church with parishioners buried on the grounds.
My feelings changed as I walked around the grounds of the church. The looming flora and fauna of all varieties made the yard feel more like a historic garden, with tombstones marking lives as moments in time, all part of a bigger picture. I learned that Reverend Joseph Blount-Cheshire, the founder of the church in 1833, was not just a rector; he was also an acclaimed botanist. Many of the trees that he planted would not typically survive in North Carolina. By grafting foreign trees onto native plants, Blount-Cheshire created a unique garden for his beloved congregation. History was replete in the churchyard- certain family names reappeared over and over again, showing continuous lineages of parishioners. Sculpted lambs sat atop small stones, marking the graves of children that passed too soon. Confederate crosses marked the burial sites of Civil War soldiers.
Being among so many stories was overwhelming.
Some stories stood out more than others. I stumbled across the grave of William Dorsey Pender, the youngest Confederate general of the Civil War who died in combat at 29 years of age. His grave was special, marked with cannon shells surrounding his above-ground coffin. More touching were the twin graves of two young girls, marked with beds of white flowers; one had tried to save the other from drowning in a river, and neither had survived. Reverend Janey Wilson told us all of these stories with a learned disconnect that comes from working next to a graveyard every day. The Reverend noted that, when doing funeral processions, they always pass the girls’ graves on the way into the churchyard.
Janey Wilson is the first female reverend of Tarboro Calvary Episcopal, and has dedicated herself to the maintenance of her congregation and the church, by any means necessary. She jokes, “The normal congregation doesn’t all come, but I have my Facebook congregation.”
I had not entered the churchyard with expectations, but I left feeling at peace. And if I ever drive through Tarboro again, I’ll be sure to stop at Calvary Episcopal to visit the graves and to soak in the history and the serenity that emanates from the churchyard.
For more information on the Tarboro Calvary Episcopal Church, please visit http://www.calvarytarboro.org/