KING'S CHAPEL
  • Home
    • About Us >
      • Welcome
      • Calendar
      • Church Leadership
      • Clergy & Staff
      • Contact Us & Directions >
        • Send A Message
      • Employment Opportunities
  • Worship
    • Sunday at 9 AM
    • Sunday at 11 AM
    • Sermons
    • Special Annual Services
    • Book of Common Prayer
  • Memorial to Enslaved Persons
    • Memorial To Enslaved Persons
    • Memorial Project in the News
  • Visit, History, and History Program Blog
    • Visit
    • Our History >
      • A Brief History
      • Research and Records
      • The Stone Chapel: Art & Architecture >
        • The Wooden Chapel
        • Georgian Architecture
        • Box Pews
        • Interior Colors
        • Memorials
        • The Chancel Windows
        • The Last Supper Painting
      • Crypt and Burying Ground >
        • Crypt >
          • Crypt Highlights: Crypt Entrance
          • Crypt Highlights: Tomb Structure
          • Crypt Highlights: The Stranger's Tomb
          • Crypt Highlights: Research and Family Connections
          • Crypt Highlights: Remaining Memorials
          • Crypt Highlights: Hand-Hewn Beams
        • Burying Ground
      • Religious History >
        • 334 Years of Ministry
      • Slavery and King's Chapel
    • History Program Blog
  • Music
    • Tuesday Recitals
    • Concert Series
    • Musical Inquiries
  • Community
    • Parish Community News
    • News & Updates >
      • Between Sundays Archive
    • Community from Home
    • Community Action Committee >
      • Anti-Racism Resources
    • Environmental Action Initiative
    • Children & Youth
    • Join King's Chapel
    • For Members >
      • Annual Budget Meeting Materials
      • Annual Meeting 2025
      • KC Bylaws
  • Giving
    • Why Give
    • Ways to Give
    • Pledge
  • Weddings & Baptisms
    • Weddings >
      • Dear Prospective Couple
      • Wedding Inquiry
      • Wedding Service
    • Baptisms
  • Space Rentals

History Program Blog

Preservation Month & "The Last Leaf"

5/24/2023

0 Comments

 
​by Lin Nulman, Historic Site Educator

In April, for National Poetry Month, we had literary historian Rob Velella as our virtual guest speaker. This enjoyable talk on the “friendship poems” of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. focused on the literary and Harvard friends who inspired him. Dr. Holmes also wrote about King’s Chapel, where he was a member, on several occasions. 

Another Holmes poem I find both charming and poignant has a secret chapel connection. “The Last Leaf” was, as Rob explained to us, written about Thomas Melvill, whose memorial stone is attached to the back wall of the King’s Chapel. Whether it was placed there in his honor, or was displaced out of the Burying Ground at some point, I’m not sure. (Research to do!)
Picture
The poem’s speaker sees aged Mr. Melvill walking in Boston, looking weary and lost and out of step with the 19th century. His clothes are from younger days in the 18th century: “the old three-cornered hat,/And the breeches, and all that...”. He seems to be thinking sadly of people long gone. The poem’s speaker wants to chuckle at his eccentric look, but also feels deeply for Melvill’s losses, knowing that he may find himself someday in Melvill’s old-fashioned shoes.

“The Last Leaf” was not a Holmes poem I knew, and as a King’s Chapel History Program educator, I’m happy Rob introduced us. I have Melvill’s image from the poem in my mind now whenever I see this stone, and he's become, vividly, a person who once lived, once took a walk, was once seen by an empathetic poet.

The poem preserves a sense of his life, and the stone preserves his name and the dates of that lifetime. Together they get me thinking, during Preservation Month in May, about what preservation can be. It can be the profound preservation of this entire mid-18th-century church and crypt, so much of which is original. It can be stories about past people and events, whether in writing or in conversations we have with chapel visitors. It can also be quiet objects I pass by sometimes, that suddenly blossom into new meaning, as the Melvill stone did through Oliver Wendell Holmes’s poem.

I have gladly collected “The Last Leaf” into my mental anthology of King’s Chapel writing. Other pieces in the collections include the poems and prose of member Sarah Wentworth Morton, and the novels The Scarlet Letter and Little Women. Come visit and ask us why! “The Last Leaf” felt especially good to discover during April, Literature and Poetry Month, because Thomas Melvill’s grandson, my beloved Herman Melville, had a whale of a time as a writer himself.
0 Comments
    Donate Here!

    King's Chapel History Program

    Dive deeper into King's Chapel's 337 year history on the History Program blog.

    Currently welcoming over 260,000 visitors to the historic sanctuary annually, The King's Chapel History Program is excited to share the site's history more in depth and to a wider audience through this outlet.

    Archives

    July 2023
    May 2023
    March 2023
    March 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    May 2021
    December 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020

    Categories

    All
    18th Century
    19th Century
    20th Century
    American Revolution
    Architecture
    Black History
    Crypt
    Difficult History
    Exhibit
    Literature
    Loyalists
    Medical Professionals
    Memorials
    Mourning
    People Of King's Chapel
    Preservation
    Public History
    Slavery At King's Chapel
    Social Media
    Women's History

    RSS Feed

 www.kings-chapel.org |  58 Tremont St. Boston, MA 02108  |  617-227-2155 
  • Home
    • About Us >
      • Welcome
      • Calendar
      • Church Leadership
      • Clergy & Staff
      • Contact Us & Directions >
        • Send A Message
      • Employment Opportunities
  • Worship
    • Sunday at 9 AM
    • Sunday at 11 AM
    • Sermons
    • Special Annual Services
    • Book of Common Prayer
  • Memorial to Enslaved Persons
    • Memorial To Enslaved Persons
    • Memorial Project in the News
  • Visit, History, and History Program Blog
    • Visit
    • Our History >
      • A Brief History
      • Research and Records
      • The Stone Chapel: Art & Architecture >
        • The Wooden Chapel
        • Georgian Architecture
        • Box Pews
        • Interior Colors
        • Memorials
        • The Chancel Windows
        • The Last Supper Painting
      • Crypt and Burying Ground >
        • Crypt >
          • Crypt Highlights: Crypt Entrance
          • Crypt Highlights: Tomb Structure
          • Crypt Highlights: The Stranger's Tomb
          • Crypt Highlights: Research and Family Connections
          • Crypt Highlights: Remaining Memorials
          • Crypt Highlights: Hand-Hewn Beams
        • Burying Ground
      • Religious History >
        • 334 Years of Ministry
      • Slavery and King's Chapel
    • History Program Blog
  • Music
    • Tuesday Recitals
    • Concert Series
    • Musical Inquiries
  • Community
    • Parish Community News
    • News & Updates >
      • Between Sundays Archive
    • Community from Home
    • Community Action Committee >
      • Anti-Racism Resources
    • Environmental Action Initiative
    • Children & Youth
    • Join King's Chapel
    • For Members >
      • Annual Budget Meeting Materials
      • Annual Meeting 2025
      • KC Bylaws
  • Giving
    • Why Give
    • Ways to Give
    • Pledge
  • Weddings & Baptisms
    • Weddings >
      • Dear Prospective Couple
      • Wedding Inquiry
      • Wedding Service
    • Baptisms
  • Space Rentals