1882 Scrapbook of Newspaper Clippings Vo 1 017

4

A NEW CREMATORY.

Elaborate Plans for a Chapel and Fur-
nace in Philadelphia.

[SPECIAL DESPATCH TO THE EVENING RECORD.]

PHILADELPHIA, PENN., July 10. - It is an-
nounced, today, that a crematory to cost
$40,000, and to be situated within ample
grounds in this city, is soon to be erected.
The scheme is in the hands of a stock com-
pany, of which Dr. Berthold Troutman is
president, and sufficient money has been
subscribed to insure the success of the plan.
Eleven acres of ground near Manayunk have
been secured, and the plans for the
buildings are now being drawn. These
plans contemplate a chapel after the Greek
style, the pilasters, bases and columns to
be of granite, and the walls of brick. The
roof will be surmounted by a cupola, and
both covered with copper. The building
will be 100 feet by 80. The cupola will be
surmounted by an angel of Peace 15 feet high
of solid bronze. Within the walls of this
beautiful structure will be a chapel.
The catafalque upon which the coffin will
rest during the ceremonies will be so ar-
ranged that when the services are over it
can be lowered to the floor beneath, upon
which will be the crematory furnace. Upon
the chapel floor there will be a chamber for
the reception of the dead, and in order
that the relatives may be convinced that
life is really extinct the apartment will
be provided with electrical appliances
so that the slightest movement in
the coffin will sound on alarm to
the watchman. Here corpses may
remain for three days, if thought necessary.
Within the chapel there will be 10,000
places of sepulchre for the ashes of the
cremated. The grounds will be laid out in
keeping with the buildings which are to be
erected, and there will be lots laid off for
the burial of the dead as in other ceme-
teries, so that those who dislike the idea of
cremation may bury their friends in the
orthodox way. A large number of influ-
ential men are interested in the scheme.

Opposed to Cremation.

BUFFALO, N. Y., Nov. 2.- The project for the
incineration of dead bodies which, by the erec-
tion of a crematory, is soon to be tested in this
locality, is meeting with considerable opposition.
Bishop Coxe preached in St. John's Church last
evening to a very large congregation on the sub-
ject of "Christian Burial," giving his views in
opposition to cremation. His text was St. John's
description of the burial of Christ. He claimed
that incineration was repugnant to Christian
civilization.

DISPOSING OF THE DEAD.

The attention of the Strand board of guard-
ians, London, was drawn at a recent meeting
to the "entirely new method of disposing of
the dead," with regard to which Mr. Pratt of
Tavistock square, Covent Garden, recently
invited the opinion of that board. Mr. Pratt
suggested that Reculvers churchyard, Herne
Bay, should be reclaimed, and used as a burial
ground, that bodies should be placed in deal
or wood coffins, enclosed in concrete blocks,
which should be placed near the shore at low
water upon a level bed, and secured at the top
until a wall was formed. The blocks being
heavy could not be washed away, but would,
in course of time form a good sea wall and pre-
vent the sea making inroads, as at present.
This novel proposition has created a great
deal of comment and referring to what oc-
curred at the meeting of the guardians, when
the letter was first brought up, Mr. Dart last
night expressed the opinion that Mr. Pratt
had not been properly treated by the board.
The proposition, he said, was not so ridicu-
lous as it seemed. The letter was written in
a confidential manner, and for it to be made
public, as it was, was rather trying to any
man. Several members ridiculed the idea of
constructing a sea wall of such material, and
Mr. Dart was unable to induce the board to
give the matter a more favorable considera-
tion than on the last occasion.

1:6:8046. Patrick Donnelly vs. Boston Catho-
lic Cemetery Association. The plaintiff in this
action alleges that he is the owner of a
burial lot in the cemetery of the defendant asso-
ciation, in which was buried the bodies of his
father and child; that the defendant, by its ser-
vants, entered upon the lot, dug up the soil and
placed another dead body over the remains of
his father and child. He seeks to recover dam-
ages for the trespass. The defence is a general
denial of liability. On trial. J. L. Eldridge for
the plaintiff, and C. L. B. Whitney for the defence.

Suffolk, Jan. 9, 1887.

MOUNT AUBURN,

as hinted above, is the pioneer cemetery, on a
large scale, of America. Projected early in 1831
by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, at the
instance of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, its secretary, for
the double purpose of a burial place and as an ex-
perimental garden, the sixty acres of Stone's
woods, or Sweet Auburn as they were sentimen-
tally designated, lying partly in Cambridge and
Watertown, were consecrated in the fall of that
year, as Mount Auburn. The success of the ex-
periment was manifest at the outset, and the cem-
etery so grew in importance that in 1835 it was
deemed best by the proprietors to form a sepa-
rate corporation for its management, and the
transfer was amicably made in that year. Since
then improvements have been made from time to
time. The original driveways and paths were cut
irregularly through the thick forest growth to
suit the abrupt topography, and the thinning out
and pruning of the trees to admit of burial spots
were vigorously pursued, and are even now going
on. Being the initial attempt here at landscape
gardening, mistakes of course were made
which only became apparent in these later
days; but they are being remedied as far as they
can be without destroying the best primitive
effects. In this respect of primeval beauty, Mount
Auburn probably still stands the highest in the
estimation of the admirers of forestry; while in
its works of art and landscape gardening, where
the opportunites occur for its exercise, it ranks
well with the more modern cemeteries. The tor-
tuous windings of the avenues in the older part,
compulsory at the start, and the numerous lakes,
still lend a charm to the enclosure; while the
newly acquired open land sloping gradually
to the south and west is being trans-
formed into lots meeting the new idea
so strictly followed in Cincinnatti, where
there are no visible boundaries or curbs.
In the older portions of the cemetery the iron
fences are slowly disappearing, though some of
the lot owners yet cling to their original idea of
inclosing their plats. In the new portion they are
prohibited in the deeds.

In approaching the substantial Egyptian gate-
way on Mount Auburn street, after a drive past
Harvard College, and the Longfellow, Lowell and
some other noted residences on the road from Bos-
ton, the visitor is struck with the plain solidity of
everything pertaining to this city of the dead
from an outside point of view. Even upon
passing the portal this effect is not lost.
The aim of the management seems to be,
not a striving for the impossible, but the preser-
vation, so far as it is good, of what Nature has gen-
erously provided in the way of foliage, this sea-
son so rich in verdure beyond many previous
summers. To the right are seen the Sphinx and the
fine stone chapel on the hill, while nestling in the
intervening valley are some of the most elaborate
above-ground tombs in the cemetery. Here also
is an opportunity for floral effects, and they are
modestly improved, the flowers being arranged
in beds around an artificial pond, in the centre of
which a fountain plays. In the chapel are the
finely executed statues of Joseph Story, John
Winthrop, John Adams and James Otis.
But it is useless to select a route where all is so
devious. An experienced driver will see that his
company passes Indian ridge near the Longfellow
lot, the receiving tomb with its 240 receptacles
built into the bank overlooking the lake, the memo-
rial shaft erected by the First Corps of Independent
Cadets to its fallen comrades in the war; the Char-
lotte Cushman monument, and those to Charles
Sumner, Rufus Choate, Louis Agassiz, William
Ellery Channing, Edward Everett, Nathaniel
Bowditch, Abbott Lawrence, Fanny Fern,
Margaret Fuller, Johann K. Spurzheim, Fran
cis B. Hayes, Harvey Jewell, Jonas Chick-
ering, and Anson Burlingame, the latter over-
looking the Alice fountain. These monu-
ments over the resting places of those who bore
these honored names are characterized by the
best taste, and in some instances uniqueness of
their design. Other prominent tombs and monu-
ments are those of Bartholomew Cheever, Otis
Norcross, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Dowse,
Alvin Adams, William F. Harnden, C. J. F. Bin-
ney, T. J. Leland, Colonel John Mountfort, John
Lowell, Jr., Gardner Brewer, Hannah Adams,
W. H. Knight, Samuel Appleton, J. Foss, N. H.
Earle, Henry Oxnard, J. H. Gossler, Elijah Lor-
ing, H. S. Chase, Hosea Ballou, W. H. Dutton,
Harvey D. Parker, Thatcher Magoun, Solomon
Piper, Ichabod Howland, and Paran Stevens. Of
the living proprietors who have prominent tombs
or monuments in their family names are M. C.
Ferris, C. U. Cotting, N. J. Bradlee, David Nev-
ins, General A. P. Martin, Leopold Morse, Thomas
Mack, Joseph H. White, Charles Whitney, Hen-
ry A. Gane, Charles Amory, John S. Wright,
George C. Richardson, Arioch Wentworth, Da-
vid H. Hitchcock, Knowlton S. Chaffee and
Hollis Hunnewell. But further particulariza-
tion is needless where there is so much

in architecture and sculpture to be viewed
in passing. Arriving at Consecration Dell,
the scene in 1831, when the grounds were con-
secrated, may well be imagined when looking up
the tree-covered amphitheatre of hills which con-
tained on that day thousands of people, witness-
ing the ceremonies and listening to the elo-
quence of Judge Story, one of the founders.
Overlooking this dell is the massive granite tower,
from whose summit is a magnificent prospect--
Boston in the distance, Cambridge and Harvard
College intervening, by which the serpentine
Charles River flows, Watertown, Belmont, Arling-
ton, Fresh and Spy Ponds, Medford, Somerville,
Bunker Hill, Roxbury, Brookline, Brighton, the
distant Blue Hills of Milton, and the Newtons
completing the perfect circle. Driving back and
out by a varied course, there is more to be seen
than has been yet even hinted at.

Boston Transcript.

MT. AUBURN.

To the Editor of the Herald: Perhaps the
last place one would look for "red tape" is
in the laws governing the management of Mt.
Auburn cemetery. The public, doubtless, re-
gard this beautiful "city of the dead" as a
coveted resting place for their departed
friends, and fondly imagine the care and
taste they will lavish upon the adornment of
the few feet of ground they call their own.
Let them be undeceived; they will do noth-
ing of the kind. The only privileges in own-
ing a lot at Mt. Auburn are entirely post mor-
tem - the right of burial. The relatives who
remain can exercise little choice in the memo-
rial that shall mark the spot, an infringement
on their liberties only outweighed by the de-
nial of the last sad comfort left to the be-
reaved.

When Mt. Auburn was hoary with years - a
thickly populated city - some of its officers con-
ceived the brilliant idea of transforming it (al-
ready filled, as it was, with headstones of every
conceivable height) to the more modern pat-
tern adopted, from its foundation, by the
younger Spring Grove cemetery of Cincinnati.
Fashion decreed that no tablet at the head of
a grave should exceed thirty inches; so, very
properly, a part of Mt. Auburn was set aside
as a landscape lawn, and the restriction re-
garding headstones was enforced. So far, so
good. But absurdity was reached when this
restriction was made to cover every unsold
lot, surrounded, as they were, by unrestricted
lots, rejoicing in the freedom of choice, thus
increasing discord rather than uniformity.

It was recently a lady's sad necessity to buy
a lot in haste. No mention was made of any
restriction on her lot at the time of purchase,
and she never heard of it until the deed was
received a week after interment. Her keen
regret was somewhat assuaged, however, by
the encouraging statement in the deed that
this restriction was enforced "except by vote
of trustees," a clause that seemed to solicit
the request for exceptional favors. Let no one
be deceived. The deed bears a misrepresenta-
tion on the face of it. The "trustees" do not
vote that way; they never, never intend to.
The lady in question kept within the restric-
tion, a matter of difficulty, as stonecut-
ters have not yet reduced desirable
models to the new law, and then she asked
that this 30-inch tablet might be properly set,
with a granite base of two or three inches, to
give appearance of solidity and protection.
She presented a petition, with photograph of
the stone, to the honorable board of trustees,
calling in addition, on each one personally,
stating the circumstances of the case, plead-
ing, arguing, entreating for the small favor of
three inches extra height in all outdoors, in a
lot paid for and owned by herself and can it
be believed, after five months' delay, the
favor is denied her.

There is some satisfaction to the law-abid-
ing citizen in the observance of every good
and sensible rule or regualation, but the in-
justice of this refusal is apparent in the fact
that a stone only 8 feet distant measures
over 3 feet in height; one near by, of same
height and style as her own, is perched on 10
inches of granite, while other stones on the
same path tower to nearly 5 feet, simply be-
cause these lots were sold before the restric-
tion was thought of. Another inconsistency,
if the desire be uniformity, is that this law
covers only stones set at the head of the
grave. In the centre of the lot, a memorial
can rise nearer the sky; even a vase, or urn,
6 feet tall, can be allowed; but not even an
inch of granite to the tablet beneath it.

This is not an isolated instance. Other
petitions are refused, other hearts hold a life-
long regret, because they are allowed no
rights and privileges in the little spot that
represents all that is left on earth of a once
happy home.
A LOT OWNER
Cambridgeport, Mass., Jan. 31, 1888.