Subterranean Celebrity: Bartlett Adams
The Eastern Cemetery in Portland, Maine holds the memories of around 7,000 persons. Some of them are known; some are not. As we uncover stories of their lives, we share them through our e-newsletter. Sometimes the tidbits are not of life, but only of the artifact that remains.
Slate gravestone in Eastern Cemetery for Bartlett Adams, Jr.
Though we know that the gravestones on our site were carved by many different stone cutters, it is often not the case that we are able to attribute a stone to a particular tradesman (unless they've carved their initials or name into it). One of them not only is responsible for a lot of stones on the site, but also was one of the most talented. Bartlett Adams (1776-1828) trained in Massachusetts and made his way to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, advertising his skill with a "flock of Italian marble and Quincy slate stone" in his possession. After his brief time there, he settled in Portland and married Charlotte Neal in 1804, (whom rests with him in a tomb near Funeral Lane). He is credited with carving the original monument to the captain of the Enterprise, Lt. William Burrows. Many slate stones in the Eastern Cemetery can be attributed to his work in addition to those of 3 of his own 5 children (2 are buried with him in the family tomb and one in Western Cemetery). The stone for his son Bartlett is the most beautiful of these with an Adams coat of arms at the top and the inscription, "Betwixt his birth and death HOW SHORT THE SPACE." This would be an appropriate inscription on the stone of anyone who is laid to rest — no matter what age — but little Bartlett was only 5 months old when he died. What sorrow hath he who carves the gravestone for his own child.
This information was first published in the October 2009 issue of Spirits Alive eNews. It will be updated here as more information is available, but my contain information that is not quite right or needs to be corrected. Text may have been edited to make sense for this page as opposed to the eNews issue it had been a part of.
Further Reading
Last update: September 2026