Carpenter. Husband of Judy. Father of Solomon, Jeffrey, Anthony, Jack, Cyrus, Leander, and Archer. Born 1779. Died 1833.
It’s hard to connect who I know him to be, the faceless man buried by the gravestone with the man I read about on all these horrible, practical lists. That man on the page is imaginary to me, more fact than person. Ben is real. His very molecules are part of this place. I breathe him.
Today, I walked over to where his body is buried, and I laid my hand on his stone. I called him “Buddy.” I hope that wasn’t disrespectful; I called my brother “Buddy” for years. Ben and I are not really buddies; of course, I know this. I don’t feel his equal. I am indebted to him—for this place, for the stories, for his name—“Ben Creasy” carved with care and filigree into stone. His stone is tangible. I can touch it. Lay my hands against the granite and feel something gritty, life carved into the death marker. Not just these photocopied names on long pieces of paper that don’t really fit in the short folders I own. I can put my fingers into the grooves of the 5 and the 4—aged 54. Younger than my own father is now.
I don’t know Ben’s scent—the way his body smelled fresh from a wash in the stream or his precious saltiness after a day in the field. But I know the fragrance of the cologne his four-times great-grandson Joe, my friend Joseph Creasy, wears. The scent of sandalwood and smiles. At 70, Joe looks fewer than the 54 years Ben lived and drives his spotless red Cadillac like he’s 16 and fresh out of the gate.
Joe and I met through mutual friends—genealogists who had researched Joe’s family. They told me he would be very interested in my work since his ancestors had been enslaved here, and so I emailed him. We arranged to meet for a tour. Another historical irony—I was giving him a tour of a place that, despite his family’s absolutely essential part in its construction and prosperity, he had never seen.
That day, I was quite nervous. I didn’t want to misspeak or insult or offend. I didn’t know how Joe would react, if he’d be angry or sad or bored or overjoyed. Now that I know him better, I know there’s this quiet calm that he abides in—a sense that all is well, no matter what. But I didn’t know that then.
To support me, Dad came along. We got in my car and headed up to the big house over the hill from Dad’s. I stopped in the driveway just in front of the French doors and began telling Joe the history of this place. The hunting lodge in 1725, the three plantations divided, the first year we can prove enslaved people had been here—1781. Then, we drove on. Through the largest plantation—past the big house and down to the barn that the slaves built as practice for building the main house. I pointed out the columns on the front of the barn—the ones that match the portico on the front of the house—and the fact that all the barn’s arches are different since they mimic the various arches on the house. Joe nodded, quiet, taking it into himself.
We circled back to Lower Bremo and turned off onto the gravel drive that leads to the cemetery. “This is the slave graveyard,” I said. Then, we opened our doors and walked across the grass into the yard proper. I told Joe about Primus and explained to him how the rise and fall of the ground indicated where graves were. As we strolled, he asked about the walls, and Dad told him we hoped to enclose the space again, to mark it more formally as sacred. Joe nodded.
We approached Ben’s stone, and my voice quieted. I stood behind it and said, “This is your four-times great-grandfather Ben Creasy’s stone.” Joe knelt down to read it, laid his hands on the sandstone. Exhaled.
“Ben Creasy,” he read. “Aged 18 . . . what does this dash mean?”
“It means the person who carved the stone didn’t know exactly what year Ben died, probably because he didn’t know exactly what year it was. 18 something.”
“Aged 54,” he continued. “He was only 54 when he died?”
I nodded. “I can leave you alone for a few minutes if you’d like.”
“No, that’s okay,” he said and smiled up at me with his perfect white teeth and soft eyes. “So this is my great-great-great-great-grandfather. What did you say he did again?”
“He was a carpenter. Ben was a carpenter.”
A few minutes later, we settled at my dad’s dining room table over tea, talking about the plantation. I showed him documents that listed his ancestors, and he told me about his family who lived over at the edge of the land that makes up these plantations.
“There’s a gap in the fence there called ‘Lucy’s Gap,’ ‘Lucy’s Gate,’” Joe said. “I wonder, could that be named for Lucy from here, Jesse’s wife.”
“I don’t know, but it seems reasonable. I’ll see what I can find out.”
It seems that the gate is probably named for Lucy Creasy, Joe’s great-aunt, Ben’s great-granddaughter and also the great-granddaughter of Jesse and another Lucy. Jesse and Lucy’s daughter Lavinia Ann married Ben and Judy’s son Anthony, Joe’s great-great-grandfather.
Joe is descended from two of the most documented families here, a double descendant. More than many African Americans, then, Joe can know his story. Not all of it, not even most of it, but more of it. Two of three marked graves in the cemetery commemorate the lives of his ancestors.
Now, when I walk in that graveyard, I tell Ben about how Joe nearly killed me as I tried to follow him to Applebee’s one Thursday afternoon, how he lives in a building so tall that I could see light for miles, how he smells of sandalwood, and how his smile is now part of my story, too. I tell him Joe is my friend.
When I introduce Ben to people who come to see this place and hear the story of its people, I say, “This is Ben Creasy, my friend Joe’s four-times great-grandpa.” I think Ben smiles.