Lewis Henry Morgan Mausoleum
Gothic
Protruding from the hillside along Ravine Avenue in Rochester’s Mount Hope Cemetery is the High Victorian Gothic mausoleum of Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881). Like many sandstone mausoleums it is slowly eroding away, which only serves to enhance its brooding Gothic ornaments. The universal feature of all Gothic architecture is the pointed arch seen here in the entry and the fenestrations at the top of the twin steeples. The line of quatrefoils on the balustrade is also Gothic inspired.
Lewis Henry Morgan’s studies of the culture of the Seneca Indians earned him the title, “father of the science of anthropology”.
Mount Hope Cemetery, established in 1838, bills itself as America’s first municipal, Victorian cemetery. Among notables buried at Mount Hope are Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony and the Bausch and Lomb families.
Rochester’s most famous citizen, George Eastman, who founded the Eastman Kodak Company was cremated at Mount Hope, but his ashes lie beneath a giant cylindrical stone monument at the entrance to Kodak Park in Rochester.
Text and photo © Douglas Keister Visit Doug’s Author Page
[address cemetery=”Mount Hope Cemetery” street=”1133 Mount Hope Avenue” city=”Rochester” state=”New York” zip=”14620″]
