Dorothy Cromwell is a particularly famous stone in Charter Street Cemetery, though few people know much about her. The notability of her stone lies in its date, 1673, making her stone the oldest in the cemetery. Dorothy first appears in Massachusetts records as the executor of the will of her deceased husband Allan Keniston who, apart from a few payments here and there, left his entire estate to her. The next year, in 1649, she would marry Philip Cromwell, a ‘slaughterer’, whose own marriage had recently ended (In 1647 he was told to bring his wife over from England, but as she did not wish to come, the court seems to have chosen to annul the marriage rather than press the issue further).
Despite Philip’s tricky marital situation, the Cromwells seem to have been the picture of Puritan respectability. Philip appears on a number of committees and inquests and Dorothy served in one of the most prominent roles for women at the time: midwife. In 1669, “Mrs. Cromwell, the midwife” with a panel of other women, was called upon by the court to examine ‘Margaret Wayemouth’ who was accusing Joshua Codner of getting her pregnant (the panel reported in the negative). She would be listed with other women in a number of cases where a panel was needed to examine the bodies of women or children, though fortunately she was deceased before her services might be required by Salem’s 1692 court.
Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, author of the oft-repeated-out-of-context-quote “well behaved women rarely make history”, briefly mentions Dorothy as an example of a woman in the role of ‘Deputy Husband’. As Ulrich writes, the Cromwells were visited by Jacob Barney in 1672 in regards to arranging a marriage. Philip and Dorothy were both present for the meeting, but as they sat in the parlor to talk, Jacob turned to Philip to initiate conversation. Somewhat to his surprise, Philip, who’s hearing was impaired by a cold, directed him to Dorothy, saying “whatever she agreed upon, he would make it good.” The following year she died at age 67, leaving behind the oldest tombstone in Salem, though sadly not the original inscription. Significant damage led to efforts to reconstruct the stone, resulting in the more simplified design seen today.