Mrs. Jayne, nee Susanna Haskell, was a native and lifelong resident of Marblehead, Massachusetts, a prosperous colonial era fishing village cited as the birthplace of the US Navy. According to local vital records, Susanna was baptized on June 11, 1732 and died at the age of 44 during the second year of the American Revolutionary War. The daughter of Mark Haskell Jr. and the former Susanna Hobart, she was the "universally lamented" and "amiable wife of Mr. Peter Jayne", whom she'd married on November 27, 1753. Her intricately carved headstone is the work of the noted Boston artisan Henry Christian Geyer, and is now encased in concrete for support. Carving in a linear style, Geyer incorporated many symbolic elements in its design, beginning with the skeleton adorning the tympanum. Crowned with a laurel wreath, it holds the sun and moon in each hand, a scythe resting against its shoulder. This depiction of the "Grim Reaper" is encircled by a serpent gripping its tail---an image symbolizing eternity---while the angels above and bats below stand for "good" and "evil" respectively. The hourglass flanked by bones in the uppermost part of the tympanum further emphasizes the brevity of life on earth and the inevitabilility of death. In contrast to her headstone, Mrs. Jayne's footstone features a soul effigy in bas relief, an indicator that it may have been made by a different carver.
Mrs. Jayne, nee Susanna Haskell, was a native and lifelong resident of Marblehead, Massachusetts, a prosperous colonial era fishing village cited as the birthplace of the US Navy. According to local vital records, Susanna was baptized on June 11, 1732 and died at the age of 44 during the second year of the American Revolutionary War. The daughter of Mark Haskell Jr. and the former Susanna Hobart, she was the "universally lamented" and "amiable wife of Mr. Peter Jayne", whom she'd married on November 27, 1753. Her intricately carved headstone is the work of the noted Boston artisan Henry Christian Geyer, and is now encased in concrete for support. Carving in a linear style, Geyer incorporated many symbolic elements in its design, beginning with the skeleton adorning the tympanum. Crowned with a laurel wreath, it holds the sun and moon in each hand, a scythe resting against its shoulder. This depiction of the "Grim Reaper" is encircled by a serpent gripping its tail---an image symbolizing eternity---while the angels above and bats below stand for "good" and "evil" respectively. The hourglass flanked by bones in the uppermost part of the tympanum further emphasizes the brevity of life on earth and the inevitabilility of death. In contrast to her headstone, Mrs. Jayne's footstone features a soul effigy in bas relief, an indicator that it may have been made by a different carver.
Gravesite Details
Source of year & birthplace, deathplace, parents' names: Findagrave member W.E.B. # 47842891
