The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collecting area: Connecticut

Weatherby, Una F.

Una F. Weatherby Collection

1924-1934
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: PH 036
Depiction of Gravestone in Putnam, Conn.
Gravestone in Putnam, Conn.

The botanical illustrator and writer Una Foster Weatherby (1878-1957) was an early student of New England gravestones. Born in Texas in 1878, Una Leonora Foster met a young pteridologist Charles Alfred Weatherby (1875-1949) while traveling abroad in 1910, and seven years later, the couple wed. As Charles advanced in his career to a position at the Gray Herbarium at Harvard, Una became his close associate, working with in the field and as illustrator and photographer. Among the many interests the couple developed was a fascination with photographing early American gravestones, and over the last three decades of her life, Una published occasionally on the subject. She died in Cambridge on August 17, 1957, and is interred with her husband at Center Cemetery in East Hartford, Conn.

The Weatherby collection consists of a substantial typed manuscript illustrating early American gravestones, mostly from New England. Meticulously assembled, the manuscript is divided into six thematic sections based on gravestone design (death’s heads, winged cherubs, wingless cherubs, portrait stones, symbolic stones, and designs and willows). Each stone is represented by a single photograph pasted onto a page, along with a transcription of the epitaph and occasional comments on the design and date on which the information was recorded. Although most stones are from Connecticut and Massachusetts, a few stones from Virginia and South Carolina are included.

Subjects

Sepulchral monuments--ConnecticutSepulchral monuments--MassachusettsSepulchral monuments--New Hampshire

Contributors

Association for Gravestone StudiesWeatherby, Una F

Types of material

PhotographsScrapbooks
Wilkie, Richard W., 1938-

Richard W. Wilkie Collection

1855-1874
3 boxes 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1044

The human geographer, Richard Wilkie received his doctorate from the University of Washington in 1968, the same year he joined the faculty at UMass Amherst. His research has included a long-term longitudinal study of the assimilation of Argentine migrants, a study of the periodic market system in the Guatemalan highlands, and other projects that range from the European Mediterranean to Hawaii, Malaysia, and Ecuador. Beginning in the 1990s, he turned increasingly to analyzing the concept of attachment to place and the importance of place in the lives of people. Wilkie retired in 2009, but has remained active in teaching, mentoring graduate students, travel, and photography.

This collection consists of town maps excised from mid-nineteenth century atlases, including Smith’s Map of Hartford County (1855), Clark and Tackabury’s New geographical map of the State of Connecticut (1860), and F.W. Beer’ Atlas of Litchfield County (1874).

Gift of Richard Wilkie, Dec. 2017

Subjects

Connecticut--Maps

Types of material

Maps