Jonathan Wilson
1794-1848

Bryant Number(s): 682
Type of Memorial: Marble headstone with sandstone base
Stonecarver: Unknown

Inscription:
Jonathan Wilson
Died
June 30 1848
AE 53 Y. 11 M.

Thou art gone to the grave but ‘twere wrong to
deplore thee,
When God was thy ransom, thy guardian and —
guide
He gave thee and took thee, and soon will restore
thee
Where death hath no sting since the Saviour hath
died.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose aga-
in even so them also which sleep in Jesus
will God bring with him.
1st Thess. 4th 14th

Commentary: Jonathan Wilson was a Granville businessman who owned an old-fashioned manufacturing enterprise – a ropewalk. A 19th-century ropewalk was a facility for the production of rope, consisting essentially of a lengthy covered walkway, possibly enclosed on the sides. Inside, strands of hemp or flax several hundred feet long could be drawn out the length of the walkway while being twisted or braided into fiber bundles dense enough to qualify as rope. Obviously a flat and lengthy parcel of land was needed to construct a ropewalk, and in Granville Jonathan Wilson found such a place at the base of the hill on Lancaster Road, now known as South Main Street. While the precise location of Wilson’s ropewalk is not known, it must have occupied some portion of the land south of the graveyard that continues today to host businesses like the Granville Mill and Ross’ Granville Market. When Jonathan died in 1848, he was buried in a plot in the Old Colony Burying Ground that looks southward down the hill and across the area where his business was located.

When restoration of the Old Colony Burying Ground was begun, Jonathan’s marble headstone was found broken out of its base and lying in the area in at least six large fragments. It had probably lain that way, some pieces more covered by sod than others, for many years. When the headstone was reassembled in 2017, the various fragments had weathered differently, giving it a jigsaw-puzzle look. All the pieces of the tablet were found, with the exception of a few chips and the upper-right corner of the stone.

Find a Grave link: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/19772846/jonathan-wilson