On most mornings, my wife and I grab cups of coffee and go for a stroll downtown. Even though our routes vary, we’ll often end up popping into Grove Street Cemetery for a car-free lap or two.
While the phrase “The Dead Shall Be Raised” is carved into the lintel of the Egyptian Revival gate, I’ve often thought, “And the decibels shall be lowered,” as we’ve crossed the threshold.
Inside, we’ve found a number of kindred spirits wandering the avenues in search of a respite from city life: joggers, dog walkers, moms and babies, amateur and professional historians, all kinds of woodland creatures and, of course, family members solemnly visiting their dearly departed.
But many times, we’ll find ourselves nearly alone among the quiet company of thousands of New Haven’s former citizens, studying the headstones and wondering about their lives.
Here are three we’ve recently come across:
Mary Goodman
While much of her early life remains undocumented, Goodman appears to have been born into slavery in 1803 or 1804 but eventually came to live as a free woman in New Haven. She owned a successful laundry business and managed to save the remarkable sum of $5,000 by the time of her death in 1872.
In her will, she arranged to leave her entire estate to Yale’s Theological Department, with the goal of educating black men preparing for Christian ministry. It was the first recorded donation to Yale from an African American.
Because Goodman had made no burial arrangements for herself, Yale honored her with a plot in Grove Street Cemetery and erected a stone to commemorate her extraordinary gift—though the one you see today is a replacement, installed after vandals destroyed the original in the 1990s.
Bart Giamatti
Before baseball took him, Bart Giamatti belonged to Yale. He taught Renaissance literature, became the university’s youngest modern president at age 39 and spent years writing about the game he loved.
Then he left campus for the National League and, in 1989, became commissioner of Major League Baseball. His brief tenure ended up defining him: He oversaw the investigation that led to Pete Rose’s permanent ban from the sport. Just eight days later, Giamatti tragically died of a heart attack at 51 years old.
His grave is marked by a polished black stone—and every time I’ve looked, a baseball. He once said of the game he loved: “It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.”
Josiah Gibbs
A New Havener from birth in 1839, Gibbs didn’t have to travel far to study at Yale, earn America’s first engineering doctorate and become the university’s first professor of mathematical physics. His work helped establish modern thermodynamics, physical chemistry and statistical mechanics.
Today, you’ll find that his grave has become a shrine. Yale students preparing for rigorous exams have taken to leaving pens, coins, gift cards, rocks, badges and other knickknacks as offerings—for luck and as tribute to the man that Albert Einstein purportedly called “the greatest mind in American history.”
