GIBEON SULLIVAN'S COOLING BOARD

AS A YOUNG MAN, Gibeon Sullivan experienced history from the front lines of the Civil War. This Confederate color bearer of Company A, 32nd Alabama Regiment, saw action at Lavergne and Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Jackson, Mississippi; and Chickamauga, Georgia. On December 16, 1864, Gibeon was taken prisoner after the Battle of Nashville and incarcerated at Camp Chase Military Prison in Columbus, Ohio. After taking an oath of allegiance to the United States, Gibeon was released in june 1865. He walked away from this national drama and returned, by foot, to his wife and children in his hometown of Wagarville in Washington County, Alabama. It was there that he built his home, a simple cabin that would become the heart of a community.

Gibeon constructed the four-bedroom, dogtrot-style log structure with hand-hewn timber, using floorboards as wide as twenty inches and large sills in the foundation beneath. At first glance, the home appears unexceptional. But as Gibeon completed it in 1874, he nailed three wooden planks together, creating a feature that turned his front porch into a place of great importance to the people of Wagarville.

This feature, known as a "cooling board," was used to hold the bodies of recently deceased community members as they were being prepared for burial. The cooling board tells of a different time, when death was very visible, burial preparations very personal, and funerals important community events. It is not known why Gibeon chose to add the cooling board to his home-one of the few homes in Washington County to have one-but this decision converted his house into a gathering place where people came to grieve and pay respects and find comfort in the presence of their neighbors in the saddest times.

On these occasions, the cooling board was lifted from the porch and placed on a wagon. Notches carved into each side of the board prevented it from falling off the wagon. Neighbors retrieved the body, transporting it on the board back to the Sullivan home, where both the body and the cooling board were placed on the porch. Here, the preparation for burial began.

Without embalming and other preservation methods, the funeral process had to be completed in one day. Attendants dressed the deceased in nice clothing, placing coins over the eyes to prevent them from opening during the visitation. Women prepared food in the Sullivan kitchen for the grieving guests. Community members viewed the body as the wooden coffin was assembled in the yard. After several hours, the mourners looked on as the body was removed from the cooling board and placed in the coffin to be taken to the nearby cemetery for burial.

While professional funeral service industries were well established in the northern states by the late 1800s, the use of the cooling board and other traditional funeral elements persisted in the South, due in part to the region's poverty and the rural location of its communities. Homes like Gibeon's served an essential role in community life.

Today, the Sullivan home remains as it did in the late 1800s. It is credited as one of the oldest homes in Washington County. Over time, the floorboards have worn, the steps decayed, the walls cracked. Yet its sturdy construction has preserved the house while many a similar one has succumbed to the elements. Markers have been placed in the back yard to memorialize the early occupants of the home, including Gibeon, who died in 1914. His decision to include the cooling board, these simple wooden planks nailed together, allowed the home to become a place for the entire community to gather in sorrow and receive solace. For all the memories created in Gibeon Sullivan's home, these small moments of gathering together may well be of the highest importance.

Breck Stapleton is a journalism major and freelance writer living in Sumrall, Mississippi.

Copyright University of Alabama Press Fall 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved