Sambo's Grave - History

Plaque

With the opening of Glasson Dock in 1787, trade ships deserted Sunderland Point and it became a sea-bathing place and holiday venue. Sixty years after the burial a retired schoolmaster, James Watson, heard the story and raised money from summer visitors to the area for a memorial, to be placed on the unmarked grave. Watson, who was the brother of the prominent Lancaster slave trader, William Watson, also wrote the epitaph that now marks the grave (note the use of 'ſ', the Long s character and the eccentric and inconsistent spelling typical of the time):

Here lies
Poor Samboo
A faithfull Negro
Who
(Attending his Maſter from the Weſt Indies)
Died on his Arrival at Sunderland

Full sixty Years the angry Winter's Wave
Has thundering daſhd this bleak & barren Shore
Since Sambo's Head laid in this lonely Grave
Lies still & ne'er will hear their turmoil more.

Full many a Sandbird chirps upon the Sod
And many a Moonlight Elfin round him trips
Full many a Summer's Sunbeam warms the Clod
And many a teeming Cloud upon him drips.

But still he sleeps _ till the awakening Sounds
Of the Archangel's Trump new Life impart
Then the Great Judge his Approbation founds
Not on Man's Color but his_Worth of Heart

James Watſon Scr. H.Bell del. 1796

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Sambo's Grave - History - Plaque