1882 Scrapbook of Newspaper Clippings Vo 1 024

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11

THREE POUNDS OF ASHES.
---
All That Remains of Robert
Leiber, a Boston Brewer.
---
His Body Cremated in Germany, and
the Dust Brought Home by His
Wife - This Precious Memorial of the
Dead to Be Inurned in a West Rox-
bury Cemetery.

Three pounds of ashes, all that remains of
Robert Leiber, a Boston brewer, will soon be
inurned in the little Germany cemetery at
West Roxbury.

It is a singular case and one that will be
made much of by the society for cremation
which has recently been revived in this city.
Robert Leiber, in his lifetime, was a man of
substance, and held a responsible position in
Roessle's brewery on Pynchon street, near
Roxbury crossing. With his wife he lived in
comfort at 118 Cedar street, not far from the
brewery.

Robert Leiber was an atheist, and the fate
which he deemed omnipotent was strongly
illustrated by the circumstances of his death.

He had long been a believer in cremation,
claiming that its practice was the duty of the
present generation to the generations which
are to come. The cemeteries, as they are in
Europe, and in old and populous cities like
Boston, he considered a menace to health.
He belonged to a cremation society, which
was to have erected a cemetery in Worces-
ter, but failed because of the lack of suf-
ficient number of subscribers.

Leiber and his wife, some time ago, went
abroad to travel in Europe and Germany -
their native country. He found that in Ger-
many cremation had been very widely ac-
cepted. Urner halles, for the reception of
the ashes of the dead, had been erected at
great cost.

The Magnificent Architecture
made them objects of public interest, and
within the spacious interiors the friends of
departing Germans had erected pedestals, as
elaborate as their means would warrant, and
upon these placed the handsomely inscribed
mortuary urns.

With the urns hermetically sealed, their
precious contents could remain for centuries
undisturbed in those silent corridors, without
fear of the desecration of the remains of the
dead, or of danger to health or comfort
of the living.

Robert Leiber died abroad, and his good
wife, carrying out his last wishes, had his
body cremated in one of the largest of the
German establishments.

To her it did not seem an uncanny thing -
the burning of a human body.

The crematory was a very handsome struc-
ture, built in an appropriate style of architec-
ture. The inevitably recurring words, "Dust
to dust," did not sound out of place on this
occasion, as the arrangements were such that
it really seemed to those looking on as if the
body was being placed in the ground.

The friends of the deceased were comforted
with the thought that, though it was sad that
Robert Leiber must die, yet it was the kind of
fate to let him die in Germany, where his
body could be disposed of according to his
own desire. They did not consider that he was
burned up, for everything is indestructible,
but the impurities passed off harmlessly
to mingle in other forms, and that which
remained to them was a memorial of the dead
rather than the dead himself. Mrs. Leiber
brought the
Ashes of Her Husband
back with her from Germany for interment
near the family home. The dust so precious
to her was easily transported from the conti-
nent without trouble or inconvenience, and
she arrived in Boston about six weeks ago.

Five weeks from last Sunday night the Ger-
man friends of Robert Leiber held a celebra-
tion in respect to his cherished memory in
Turn Hall, Middlesex street, and now the
family is only awaiting the completion of a
suitable urn and pedestal to deposit the rel-
ics of a life so dear to them in the German
cemetery.

The chosen resting place is near the Martin
Luther orphan home, a little over a mile west
of West Roxbury station. It is rather a
lonely location, but the surrounding scenery
is varied and beautiful. The old houses of
the first residents are falling in decay but
slowly and surely the buildings of a new gen-
eration are encroaching upon the old farm
lands.

The site of the Leiber urn has been selected,
but no grave has been dug, the only prepara-
tion being a brick foundation for the base of
the urn to rest firmly upon.

It is expected that within two or three days
the final inurnment will take place with very
simple ceremonies.

Robert Leiber's position in Roessle's
brewery is taken by his son, Albert Leiber,
and to the son descends also the father's
strong convictions on cremation. He does
not think that one less body buried in Boston
would make any material difference, and be-
lieves from this cremation others will follow.

LAWSE'S PRIVATE CREMATORY.
____
A Canadian Has a Right to Burn His
Dead in His Cooking Stove.

[SPECIAL TO THE WORLD.]
MONTREAL, Que., Ont., Feb. 18. - One Adolph
Lawse, who lives in St. Cunegorde, a suburb
of Montreal, recently lost a child and burned
its body in a cooking stove to save funeral
expenses. Magistrates were applied to, but
they held that he acted within his rights.

The Rev. Father Sequin called upon the
Lawse, who said in defense of his act that
both in France and in the United States dead
people were burned in big ovens and accord-
ingly he thought he was justified in burning
his dead in his own cooking stove.

He also urged that he had a right to bury
his children in his backyard or in his cellar,
which he appears to have done. He con-
tended that he had known such things to
have been done by people with whom he was
personally acquainted in Paris.

SUIT OVER A BODY.
---
Novel Point in an Equity Case in Court
at Providence

[Special Dispatch to the Boston Herald]
PROVIDENCE, R. I., . An
interesting suit in equity was held in the
supreme court this morning. It involves a
widow's right to the custody of her hus-
band's remains.

In the fall of 1889 Thomas F. Hackett
was married to Arella G. Smith in War-
wick. He was a Roman Catholic, and she
a Protestant.

In December of that year he died, and she
prepared to place his remains in a Protest-
ant cemetery, according to his expressed
wish that she might rest beside him, which
could not be the case should he be
buried in a Catholic cemetery. His
family objected to this, and by the advice
of her friends and to prevent a disturbance
and a scene at the funeral, she gave in to
them, stipulating however that, when all
was quiet, she should insist upon an inter-
ment where she pleased to have it made.

The body was placed in St. Mary's ceme-
tery in Crompton, and on , she
obtained a permit from the town authori-
ties and the consent of the superintendent
of the cemetery to remove the body. She
had it placed in a lot in the Riverside ceme-
tery at Pawtucket which she had bought.

The Hackett family did not learn of this
until the interment had been made. They
began a suit in equity to compel the River-
side Cemetery Association to return the
body, and to restrain the widow from in-
terfering with its return.

The court decided today that the River-
side corporation could not be made a party,
as its participation had been strictly legal;
neither could that corporation go upon the
lot owned by the widow and interfere with
the body, or restrain her from preventing
others from removing it.

The case then rested solely on the rights
of the widow, and on this point both sides
made long arguments. The respondent set
up proof of her husband's request that
his body should not be interred where
hers could not be placed beside it, and that
she had never given her full consent
to the parents to bury it where they pleased.
The petitioners asserted that next of kin in
law did not mean that, in the ownership of
a body, the wife had rights superior to
those of the family of the husband.

On this point the case will be decided.

The court held the matter for advise-
ment.

18R.9.155

WAS BISHOP BROOKS A CREMA-
TIONIST?

It is stated in a volume on the history
of the cremation movement in this coun-
try that Bishop Brooks warmly approved
of the society and was its first vice-presi-
dent. His letter of reply to the invita-
tion to take a part in the work is pub-
lished, and it would seem as if he were
one of the ardent advocates of cremation
to any one who reads it. And yet,
though he died of what was called a con-
tagious disease, he was buried under the
usual forms of interment, and the fact
that he was a cremationist has been
quietly kept out of sight by those who
have stood near to him. The fact, how-
ever, is not to be denied, though it is not
known that he had ever expressed a wish
in regard to his own cremation.

COST OF BURIAL LOTS
---
A Last Resting Place is Quoted Very
High in Washington

It is more expensive to die than live in
Washington, to say nothing of the incon-
venience of it, according to the Post of that
city. The question of cemeteries is always
a perplexing one to growing cities like
Washington, and while the disposition of a
man's body is of little moment to him after
it is ready to be laid away, it perplexes the
brain of many of the living.

The public is not yet educated up to cre-
mation. Though this method goes far
back in the centuries for its origin, and is
today advocated by many of the more ad-
vanced thinkers, yet many shudder at the
thought of having loved ones incinerated
and their ashes placed in an urn, no mat-
ter how fancy the vessel may be. The dis
ciples of the cremation theory contend for
its adoption on the score of health, urging
that many of the epidemics are traceable
to city cemeteries. Many other sound argu-
ments are advanced by adherents of the
ancient custom, but still the people are not
ready to accept it. They prefer to have the
bodies of friends and relatives lie under
the sod, or shut up in walls of stone or
brick, and left as food for time and worms.

Washington is credited with 52 ceme-
teries, sufficient, it would seem, to accom-
modate all demands. A large number of
these, however, are private burying
grounds. The five principal cemeteries are
Rock Creek, which is the oldest, having
been used as a burial place since 1719;
Glenwood, the Congressional, Mt. Olivet
and Oak Hill. These cities of the dead are
attractive enough, and contain the remains
of many of Washington's most noted citi-
zens. There is still room in them too.

The question which confronts the middle
class of Washington's citizens, however, is
a serious one. The wealthy can always
find a suitable resting place. To them price
is no object, but to those of less plethoric
bank accounts it is a momentous one. The
prices of lots in any of the fashionable
cemeteries is $1 or $1.50 a foot. A lot 10x20
feet would therefore cost $200 or $300. The
middle class can not afford such an ex-
pense, and are driven to seek a resting
place in the Potter's field or "God's acre,"
as some term it.

Many of the cemeteries are inconvenient
by reason of distance from the city. This
question of cemeteries is thus becoming
more perplexing as each year drops off into
the abyss of the past. People are looking
round for more convenient and less ex-
pensive place.

RECOVERS HUSBAND'S BODY.
---
Suit Decided in Favor of the Wife at
Dover, Me.

[Special Dispatch to the Boston Herald.]
BANGOR, Me., . A queer
suit has been decided in the supreme court
in Piscataquis county, it being a contest
over a man's remains.

It was the action of Mrs. Elizabeth T.
Palmer againts her late husband's rela-
tives to recover the remains of her hus-
band, which are buried at Dover, for the
purpose of removing them to her home in
Jersey City, N. J.

A. B. Palmer, the plaintiff's husband,
was a native of Dover, but lived in Jersey
City until 1891, when he removed to Dover
and lived there until his decease, shortly
after.

He was buried in Dover, and when, last
year, his widow attempted to remove his
remains, to take them to Jersey City, his
family objected so effectually that this suit
was brought to recover.

Meanwhile her husband's brother had
died and left an estate to be divided be-
tween his heirs.

The defendents in the suit claim that in
the settlement of the estate the plaintiff
renounced all claim to the lot on which
her husband was buried and also to his
body; that the relatives were buried here,
and that it was his request that he should
be interred in the family lot.

The plaintiff claims that she has never
relinquished her claim to either the lot or
the body; that the deceased had erected a
monument on her lot in Jersey City and
that it was his request to be buried there.

The judge's decision is in favor of Mrs.
Palmer, who will take her husband's re-
mains to New Jersey.

THE VALHALLA OF NEW ENGLAND

The illustrated article on Mt. Auburn
in the June New England Magazine is
notable for its presentation of the prom-
inent features of that burying ground.
One goes in this city to Copp's Hill or
the Old Granary burying ground or to
the burial place around King's Chapel
for the resting places of the notable de-
parted of two centuries ago, but the
homes of the departed from Boston for
the last hundred years are chiefly to be
found at Mt. Auburn. They have rap-

[Column 4 of 4]

idly gathered there in the last fifty
years, and this article brings out in a
striking light the prominence of Mt.
Auburn in the life of New England for
the generation that has just gone. Ex-
cept that Concord contains the resting
places of Emersen, Hawthorne, Tho-
reau, Alcott and Mulford, Mt. Auburn
has more the distinguished men and
women resting in its sacred inclosure
than any other part of New England,
in every notable walk of life.

One of the first persons to be buried in
Mt. Auburn was Hannah Adams, who
was the first American woman to make
literature her vocation, and another of
the early notable ones was Dr. John G.
Spurzheim. Still another was the emi-
nent Universalist, Hosea Ballou. There
was a time when the great ones of Bos-
ton were rapidly gathered into this har-
vest field. Washington Allston is bur-
ied near to Dr. Channing. Anson Bur-
lingame, Dorothea L. Dix, John Pier-
pont and Dr. S. G. Howe are names fa-
miliar to every one. The graves of
Agassiz, Everett, Choate, Sumner, and
Robert C. Winthrop are places where
pilgrim feet like to wander, but it is to
the resting places of Longfellow, Lowell
and Holmes that the pilgrimage is more
frequent, and the path is most worn to
the grave of Phillip Brooks. There are
many tablets to indicate that persons
should have been buried here who have
died elsewhere. The tablets to Motley,
to Margaret Fuller Ossoli and to Rob-
ert Gould Shaw are eloquent in their
silent expression. The graves of Fran-
cis Parkman, of Jacob Abbott, of James
T. Fields, of N.P. Willis, and of his
sister "Fanny Fern", of Jared Sparks,
of President Felton, of John Murray,
the American founder of Universalism,
of Worcester the lexicographer, of Pal-
frey the historian, of Charlotte Cush-
man, and of Mrs. Hemenway, are places
where one likes to tread with reverent
step. Dr. Asa Gray and Prof. Hors-
ford and Edwin Booth are also persons
whose resting places no one will forget.

It is not surprising that few persons
who visit Boston are satisfied until they
have been to Mt. Auburn. We have no
Westminster Abbey in New England
where we can bury our dead in an his-
torical sepulture, but nature had done
for Mt. Auburn in the growth of forest
trees even more than the hand of man
has done in Westminster to make the
place beautiful and attractive. We can
never think of the great ones departed
as entirely gone when their bodies are
resting in the old burial places in Bos-
ton and in Mt. Auburn. These notable
men and women had consecrated these
places forever, and generations yet un-
born will flock to Boston and Cambridge
to look with their own eyes upon the
places where the bodies of these great
ones have turned to dust. In this sense
the departed are still with us, and much
of the charm of life in Boston is due to
the traditions of these men and women
who have made life brilliant and re-
markable in other days. This part of
New England stands in the eyes of the
whole country for an antiquity and an
intellectual character which made it for
a long time the most notable spot in
America, and nothing could exceed the
joy of both pilgrims and natives when
the ancient burial places in the heart of
the city were thrown open to the public
a year ago. The grass has not yet
grown again in front of Paul Revere's
tombstone, but thousands of men and
women have been thrilled with high
emotion as they stood by it and by the
gravestones of other noble ones in our
earlier history. There is something in
these sacred inclosures which touches
the hearts of men to the quick, and they
will never lose their attraction.

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