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the race course, the McChord Church, the Transylvania Medical Hall, and the
watch house. Various hostelries are named, including Postlethwait’s Tavern,
Mrs. Keen’s Tavern, and the Phoenix Hotel (all in the same location), the Franklin _
house, and apparent boarding houses, such as Mrs. Jouett’s. 4
One quickly discovers that few funerals were conducted in chruches.
Typically they began at the residence of the deceased or the home of a parent or
relative. Also, in the case of boarders, Visitors, or strangers, they may be held in '
a boarding house or hotel. (One service was held at a bank, and at least one
other funeral, not listed in this group of announcements, was held in a store”) It .
is interesting to see that the funeral for Isaac Legrange was held at the home of
Joseph Milward, who was a cabinet maker and whose family business, today the ,
oldest in Lexington, was the beginning of the Milward Funeral Home. It might
. be that Joseph Milward provided the coffin for Legrange’s burial, and perhaps .
hosted his last rites, as well. A further possible instance of a cabinet maker’s
home being the place of a funeral is that for Harry M. Dean, held at the home of
E. Warner, presumably Elisha Warner, who built the only remaining signed ,
example of early Lexington furniture, a handsome mahogany chest now in Baton ‘
Rouge, Louisiana.14 In some instances, a funeral sermon was scheduled for a
later date in a church.
A funeral of 1810 was described by Samuel D. McCullough in 1871.
According to McCullough: .
The body was borne to the grave on a bier, by six or eight persons, who
occasionally changed sides, so as not to weary the arms of the pall .
bearers. The minister, and family of the deceased, followed next in
double files, then the friends. All were on foot. On arriving at the place of
interment, the body was lowered into the grave, the minister made a short
and appropriate address to the living; a hymn was sung, a prayer made,
and the benediction pronounced, and the bereaved family, mourners,
and friends returned to their respective homes. . . ."15
McCullough notes that hymns might be sung by the procession. 1‘In many
instances,” he writes, ”especially among my old Colored friends, during the
march to the grave the minister gave out, line—by-line, the words of some old
beautiful hymn, and the mourners sung it to some plaintive air, generally in the
minor key.” He deplores the later appearance of brass instruments and
“newfangled music.”16
In a number of instances, General M’Calla has made notes concerning a
cause of death —— Mrs. Luckie, who was struck by lightning at the Presbyterian
Church; John Boswell, killed in a duel with Charles Durand, of New York”;
John Barton, who committed suicide (he was, in fact, the city coroner)”; and the
notorious Mrs. Carolyn Turner, of a Boston family, who was murdered by her
slave coachman, Richard. The widow of Judge Fielding Turner, she had crippled
a black child by throwing it out of a window and killed six other slaves in
beatings. While she was beating Richard in August of 1844, he tore loose from
his chains and strangled her. (Richard was hanged on 19 November)”
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