A "First" for North America that began in South Carolina

Dear Reader, Today I feel like sharing an "oldie but goodie" with you. What follows is a revision of a Connections post from December 2008. While I admit that there is no direct connection to the Beaufort District, this is just the sort of South Carolina historical trivia that I find interesting. I hope that you will too.  - gmc

According to the Cremation Association of North America, in many parts of the United States and Canada the rate of cremation has overtaken requests for burial after death. Which sort of begs the question of when did the practice of intentional cremation begin in British North America? The answer to that question leads us back to colonial South Carolina and December 9, 1792. 

Henry Laurens,  prominent South Carolinian with plenty of personal conflicts about slavery and his role in it, had no such contradictory emotions about what should be done with his mortal remains upon his death. He became one of the first, if not the first person in America, to request cremation of his remains within his will.

According to D. D. Wallace in Life of Henry Laurens with a Sketch of the Life of Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1915), Laurens feared being buried alive. He had once almost buried his infant daughter, Martha, believed to be dead of smallpox. However, when her body was placed near a window while the grave was being dug, her attending physician noticed that the cool air had revived her. Dr. Moultrie managed to save her.

Laurens certainly did not want to take any chances with his own physical remains. His will instructs:

"I Solemnly enjoin it on my son as an indispensible Duty .... he cause my Body to be Wraped in twelve Yards of Tow Cloth, and Burnt until it be entirely and totally consumed: And then collecting my Bones, deposit them where ever he shall think proper." 

Parson Weems that inventor of many misrepresentations of American history whose body was buried for a short while in the St. Helena's Episcopal Churchyard, wrote that Henry Laurens said "My flesh is too good for worms. I give it to the flames." It was yet another fabrication of Mason Locke Weems's fertile mind.

Henry (the Younger) Laurens did as his father requested. On December 9, 1792, the body of his father was cremated on a high hill across from the family's home at Mepkin Plantation where the ashes were placed next to the buried remains of Laurens's eldest son, Colonel John Laurens. His son, died in combat on 27 August, 1782 in an engagement with the British at Chehaw Neck just over the Combahee River crossing in neighboring Colleton County. Both father and son were renowned Patriots. 

I suggest that you stop at the historical marker marking Col. Laurens' contributions and circumstances of his death on your next journey to Charleston via US Highway 17.

Sources: 

"2020 Annual Statistical Report," Industry Statistical Information, Cremation Association of North America, Accessed 9 December 2020

Image of Henry Laurens is from the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; transfer from the National Gallery of Art; gift of the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, 1942. 

"Laurens, Henry" by C. James Taylor in South Carolina Encyclopedia, University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, Date of Last Update March 1, 2019, Accessed 9 December 2020

Life of Henry Laurens with a Sketch of the Life of Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1915), pp. 457-458.  

Abstracts of Wills of Charleston District, South Carolina and Other Wills Recorded in the District, 1783 - 1800 compiled by Caroline T. Moore (Charleston, SC: Self-published, 1974), vol. IV, p. 282. 

"Parson Weems" by Katie Uva in the Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington, Accessed 9 December 2020. 

"Laurens, John" by Gregory D. Massey in South Carolina Encyclopedia, University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, Date of Last Update July 2, 2019, Accessed 9 December 2020

To Explore Further:

According to Robert G. Albion, "The best biography is D. D. Wallace, Life of Henry Laurens (1915), a very detailed, intimate account, thoroughly documented" portrait of the man. We have a copy of this book in the BDC. or you can read the book online on the Hathitrust.org website.  

The Hanging of Thomas Jeremiah: A Free Black Man's Encounter with Liberty by J. William Harris (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009) is a fascinating read. Henry Laurens, Patriot, slave trader and slave owner, accused the wealthiest Free Black man in South Carolina for inciting insurrection amongst the enslaved people. Jeremiah - also an enslaver - was tried, convicted, hung, and his body torched on a Charleston scaffold in August 1775 in spite of the colonial Governor William Campbell's efforts to save him.

Christopher Gadsden and Henry Laurens : The Parallel Lives of Two American Patriots by Daniel J. McDonough (Sellingsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 2000).

"Henry Laurens." The Study SC website provides links to other online resources about this prominent South Carolina and national figure. 

John Laurens and the American Revolution by Gregory D. Massey (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2000) examines the dashing military career of Henry's eldest son. 

The Book-Peddling Parson: An Account of the Life and Works of Mason Locke Weems, Patriot, Pitchman, Author, and Purveyor of Morality to the Citizenry of the Early United States of America by Lewis Geary (Chapel Hill, NC : Algonquin Books, 1984).  The title says it all. The Research Room has the only copy of this title in the SCLENDS Consortium of Libraries.

If you happen to be interested in Funeral Rites and Customs, the SCLENDS Consortium offers more than 200 items about the inevitable.