Sometimes a doorstep isn't just a doorstep . . .

 It's a tombstone!

Slate tombstone of Christopher Neale, 1784. Photo by author, 1980.

by John B. Green III

When I was a kid, my grandmother had a neighbor and friend named Mrs. J.S. Miller. Mrs. Miller lived in a large two-story house that stood across Neuse Boulevard from my grandmother's home. Although I didn't know it at the time, Mrs. Miller's home had replaced an earlier house that had been the center of a large plantation that had existed from the late 18th century through the mid-19th century. 

J.S. Miller House, formerly located at 1813 Neuse Blvd. Photo c. 1980.

My grandmother would sometimes take me along on her visits to see Mrs. Miller.  On one such visit, we followed Mrs. Miller through her kitchen and out the back door to see a  prized flower growing in the yard.  When we turned to go back into the house, Mrs. Miller cautioned me to step very carefully and respectfully on the large stone doorstep.  She explained that her late husband had salvaged the stone from an old cemetery that had once existed on the farm.  He had placed it face down to  hide the inscription.  It had served as the kitchen doorstep for many years.  My thoughts at this moment ran something like this: A tombstone? You mean, like dead people have? Is it haunted?  Is there a ghost? 

When we got back to my grandmother's house, I peppered her with questions.  She said that Mrs. Miller was telling the truth.  My grandmother remembered an old family graveyard that had stood near Mrs. Miller's house, and that it had been destroyed when the road had been widened. Wow!

Time passed. My grandmother died in 1973, and Mrs. Miller died in 1979, leaving the property empty and for sale.  By this time, I had graduated from college, worked as an archaeologist in Georgia, as an archivist and microfilm camera operator for the State Archives, and was working on a book about New Bern's history.  The property eventually was sold to a billboard company who, in 1980, offered all the buildings on the property to the New Bern Preservation Foundation.  I had never forgotten the story of the doorstep/tombstone and knew that the heavy equipment that would be used to move the buildings would damage or destroy it.  I couldn't let that happen.

 Christopher Neale tombstone. The inscription reads as follows: In Memory of/ Christopher Neale Esqr./ who departed this life/ Novr. [5], 1784, aged 47 years,/4 months and 27 days./ If you knew t[    ]an, remember.

Late one afternoon, I drove into Mrs. Miller's backyard and around to the kitchen door.  There was the doorstep just as I had remembered it.  Now, bear in mind that I was trespassing, and contemplating, for the noblest of historical and preservation purposes, making off with that stone.  The large stone was made of a thick slab of gray slate. I managed to lever it onto its edge long enough to see the name Christopher Neale and the date 1784. 

I knew that Neale had held a number of public offices in New Bern and Craven County, including assemblyman, militia captain at the Battle of Alamance, town treasurer, member of North Carolina's Fifth Provincial Congress, and Craven County Clerk of Court. His tombstone ought to be preserved, but it was too heavy for me to move by myself.  I needed an accomplice.  Naturally, I called Miss Gertrude.

Warrant signed  in 1784 by Christopher Neale as Clerk of Court of Craven County. Author's collection.

Gertrude Sprague Carraway, New Bern historian, journalist, author, former President General of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and first director of the Tryon Palace restoration effort, knew exactly what to do.  The next day, a Tryon Palace truck and two Tryon Palace groundsmen met me at Mrs. Miller's old home.  In short order, they had Christopher Neale's tombstone loaded into the truck and on its way to Tryon Palace. There it would be placed on a new brick foundation in the "Wilderness" area of the river-side gardens of the Palace.  Although the stone had been saved, its presence in the gardens never really made much interpretive sense and was difficult to explain to the average visitor. There it remained, however, for more than ten years, before being uprooted, for the third time in its history, and moved to storage. 

And so, dear readers, I will close with this question: When was the last time you took a good, hard look at your back doorstep?  It might not be what it seems.