Four generations of Soule carvers worked in the Plymouth and Worcester areas. They included Ebenezer Soule (1710 - 1792) and his sons Ebenezer (1737-1811), Asaph (1739 - 1823), Coomer (1747 - 1777), Beza (1750 - 1835) and Ivory (1760 - 1846).
Just as Nathan Hayward and William Cushman replaced Nathaniel Fuller and Seth Tinkham as important gravestone suppliers in southeastern Massachusetts, the Soules replaced Hayward and Cushman. The Soules were major suppliers to Cape Cod. They copied the earlier carvers and they developed their own distinctive styles of markers. They often using a local green slate. Crude heads with wild hair and no wings or abstract wings were called Medusa stones. They also produced somewhat realistic winged heads with characteristic circles in the hair. Often the face had a slight smile. The wing design generally had either circles or a fish scale pattern. Sometimes the head and wings were attached to a cross hatched semi circle perhaps representing the body. They also carved realistic winged heads with curly hair and scallop collars. Following are markers of the styles carved by the Soules (some may have been carved by Hayward or Cushman). Literature sources confirm some of these attributions.
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