William Rufus “Rock” Jackson (1808-1892) was a gin operator, miller, and headstone carver who lived and worked in Chambers County, Alabama. Jackson became known for his carving and made many tombstones for his family and community members using local green schist or steatite. Also known as soapstone, steatite is mainly composed of talc, which makes it relatively soft.
Jackson’s markers, characterized by their distinctive green-blue coloring, can be found throughout eastern Alabama. Colloquially, the stone was also called “blue marble.” The headstones feature a variety of symbols with recognizable lettering. According to Cox (2010), who wrote their thesis on Jackson’s tombstones, the most common elements are hearts and fern branches, but there are dozens of designs in the over 400 markers they documented. Markers have been identified in four counties.
So far, I have documented the vernacular headstones in three cemeteries: Long Cane Baptist Church in Troup County, Georgia (top image), Mount Hickory Cemetery in Chambers County, and Concord Primitive Baptist Church in Randolph County. One thing I noticed is that not all headstones were oriented toward the east, so it made photographing the headstones a challenge. I will document more headstones during future visits to eastern Alabama.
If you want to know more, I highly recommend Monica Norton Cox’s thesis about Rock Jackson. It can be found here.
