The "Cumberland Gap" through which Sutpen brings the imported tombstones for his wife and himself is a narrow pass through the Cumberland Mountains near the intersection of the states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. It was a major route over the Appalachians for the settlers who first inhabited the frontier southwest.
"Sumter" is Fort Sumter, which guarded the harbor in Charleston, South Carolina. The first shots of the Civil War were fired when the fort was attacked by Confederates on 12 April 1861. The Union garrison there surrendered ("the fall of Sumter," 61) the next day.
The "French architect" who designs and helps construct the buildings and grounds at Sutpen's Hundred came to Yoknapatawpha "all the way from Martinique" (26). At that time Martinique was a French colony with an economy that depended on sugar and slaves.
The "French architect" who designs and helps construct the buildings and grounds at Sutpen's Hundred in Absalom, Absalom! came to Yoknapatawpha "all the way from Martinique" (26). Like Haiti, where Supten himself lives for a time in the novel, Martinique is an island in the Caribbean. At that time the architect would have been there, it was a French colony with an economy that depended on sugar and slaves.
