Pratt Tomb
This canopy tomb looks like a miniature Gothic cathedral complete with a towering central spire ringed with menacing gargoyles. All four gables are punctuated with trefoils above the Gothic arches which rest on Corinthian columns. The four larger than life female figures standing away from the monument are classically draped, a nod to Classical Revival.
Samuel Fletcher Pratt (1840-1880), to whom the monument is dedicated, is only one of many generations of Pratts whose graves pepper the property, which received its first burial in 1872.
Photos and text © Douglas Keister Visit Doug’s Author Page
[address cemetery=”Forest Lawn Cemetery” street=”1411 Delaware Avenue” city=”Buffalo” state=”New York” zip=”14209″]
Ryerson Mausoleum
In 1887, when architect Louis Sullivan was 31 years old he designed the polished, black granite Ryerson mausoleum. Sullivan’s creation is an artful blending of two Egyptian burial monuments; a pyramid, which crowns the top of the mausoleum and a mastaba, a forerunner of the pyramid, which forms the bottom section.
During the 1880’s Sullivan’s firm, Adler and Sullivan built four office buildings for Martin Ryerson. When he died, his son, Martin A. Ryerson, commissioned Sullivan to design this mausoleum.
Martin Ryerson (1818-1887) left the security of his New Jersey home and got as far as the wilds of Michigan where he became a fur trader, then a general store clerk and finally a sawmill owner. Around 1850 Ryerson opened an office in Chicago for his booming lumber business. Over the next 20 years Chicago became the distribution center for the lumber trade. Ryerson became a wealthy man, first in the lumber business, then by investing in real estate and office buildings.
Photos and text © Douglas Keister Visit Doug’s Author Page
[address cemetery=”Graceland Cemetery” street=”4001 North Clark Street” city=”Chicago” state=”Illinois” zip=”60613″]
Moorhead Mausoleum
The Moorhead mausoleum’s architecture is uniquely funerary. It is unlikely that this type of architectural mish-mash would be found anywhere but a cemetery. The mausoleum, designed by Pittsburgh architect, Louis Morgenroth, in 1862, was the grandest tomb in Allegheny Cemetery for a number of decades. It was originally surrounded by a heavy stone wall, which has long since deteriorated.
>For this architectural folly, Morgenroth started with basic Gothic Revival forms (seen in the building’s arches and the quatrefoil above the entry), but he also used a number of Classical Revival elements (the columns and capitals). Capping his creation, in the words of one architecture critic, is “a dome from outer space”.
The brown sandstone structure was built for Kennedy Moorhead, one of the founders of Allegheny Cemetery. Moorhead was a Pennsylvania Canal operator, engineer, and president of the Monongahela Navigation Company, which canalized the Monongahela River. The Moorhead mausoleum’s crypts are underground and the surrounding family plot is peppered with the graves of generations of Moorheads.
Photos and text © Douglas Keister Visit Doug’s Author Page
[address cemetery=”Allegheny Cemetery” street=”4715 Penn Avenue” city=”Pittsburgh” state=”Pennsylvania” zip=”15224″]
Cristoforo Colombo Society Tomb
Perched atop the Societa Cristoforo Colombo tomb, a life size statue of the great Italian navigator, Christopher Columbus, points toward the New World. In the centuries to come, many Italians followed him to America, but not all achieved his station in life. Many of these Italians, and other nationalities as well, formed fraternal or benevolent societies that were patterned after American organizations such as the Elks and the Masons. These societies, besides being a place to gather and talk, contracted with doctors and hospitals to provide access to basic medical care. The majority of the societies also provided a place of burial at a modest cost. By their nature, the society tombs had a finite amount of space, so one’s stay in a crypt was a temporary affair. After an appropriate duration the deceased’s bones were scooped up and placed in a separate chamber. Sometimes these bone warehouses, known as ossuaries, were part of the tomb and other times they were off site.
There are only a few active society tombs in New Orleans today. The Cristoforo Colombo Society is no longer active and this tomb has been refurbished and converted to a community mausoleum where occupants are now guaranteed a permanent residence.
Photos and text © Douglas Keister Visit Doug’s Author Page
[address cemetery=”Metairie Cemetery” street=”5101 Pontchartrain Boulevard” city=”New Orleans” state=”Louisiana” zip=”70124″]
Pierrepont Catafalque
This Gothic Revival catafalque, carved out of sandstone, is the last resting place for a number of members of the Henry Evelyn Pierrepont family. Henry Pierrepont was the son of a wealthy Brooklyn landowner and gin distiller. In 1835, the task fell upon Henry to lay out the streets for the newly incorporated city of Brooklyn. His design included 11 parks, and land set aside for the development of a cemetery to be modeled after Père-Lachaise cemetery, in Paris.
As things evolved, Green-Wood Cemetery, which was dedicated on April 11, 1838, was modeled after Cambridge’s Mount Auburn Cemetery (which itself was modeled after Père-Lachaise). During the decade after its dedication, additional land was purchased until Green-Wood reached its present size of 478 acres, three times that of Mount Auburn. In 1849, noted landscape architect A.J. Downing proclaimed, “Judging from the crowds of people in carriages and on foot I found constantly thronging Green-Wood and Mount Auburn, I think it is plain enough how much our citizens of all classes would enjoy public parks on a similar scale.” It was, in fact, the popularity of Green-Wood Cemetery that led to the establishment of New York City’s Central Park in 1856.
The design of the Pierrepont catafalque has been attributed to Richard Upjohn and his son Richard Mitchell Upjohn. Pierrepont had also commissioned the father/son team to design the Gothic Revival entrance to Green-Wood cemetery.
Photos and text © Douglas Keister Visit Doug’s Author Page
[address cemetery=”Green-Wood Cemetery” street=”Willow Avenue” city=”Brooklyn” state=”New York” zip=”11218″]
Crouse Mausoleum
Architect H.Q. French of New York designed this mausoleum in 1884 for John Crouse (1802-1891). It is in a style that can only be described as “uniquely funerary”. The main body of the Crouse tomb appears to be Romanesque Revival or “English Gothic” as it was known at the time, but certain details such as the piston-like columns suggest the influence of Frank Furness (Furness was a Philadelphia architect noted for his highly personal style). Crouse wanted to make sure he knew what he was getting, when it came to his eternal home so he had it built in anticipation of his death (which would occur 7 years after the completion of the mausoleum), rather than have some relative attend to its construction, after his death.
John Crouse was an industrialist and capitalist who was known as the wealthiest man in Syracuse, achieved the bulk of his wealth in the wholesale grocery business.
Photos and text © Douglas Keister Visit Doug’s Author Page
[address cemetery=”Oakwood Cemetery” street=”940 Comstock Avenue” city=”Syracuse” state=”New York” zip=”13210″]
Wieting Mausoleum
The jury is still out on what the architect/builder was thinking when designing the Wieting Mausoleum in 1880. Some say it resembles of an East Indian, Tibetan or Chinese Stupa. Stupas were most frequently associated with the Buddhist culture in these countries. The conical shape of Stupas reflect the Buddhist belief that one proceeds in an ascending process towards unification. Indeed, in China, Stupas are often used to surmount tombstones and burial chambers.
Read More»Lefebvre Mausoleum
Most brick mausoleums are rather plain affairs where utility and economy-of-construction are of prime importance. Often, they are covered with stucco or similar materials to provide some character. The Lefebvre mausoleum is an exception to the rule and is truly a tribute to the bricklayer’s art. All of the architectural ornament in this Classical Revival mausoleum is expressed with bricks. Pediments, column capitals, dentils, engaged columns and embossed panels are all brick.
The only non-brick forms are the marble tablets calling the roll of departed family members. The Lefebvre family have actively used the mausoleum since its construction, over 100 years ago. Although cemetery records do not indicate the designer or builder of the mausoleum, its inspiration appears to have been the tomb of Cyrus the Great in ancient Persia.
Photos and text © Douglas Keister Visit Doug’s Author Page
[address cemetery=”Metairie Cemetery” street=”5101 Pontchartrain Boulevard” city=”New Orleans” state=”Louisiana” zip=”70124″]
Spotts Mausoleum
John Baird of Philadelphia designed and erected this marble mausoleum in 1866, in an Islamic style with some Classical embellishments often called Venetian Gothic. Many fine examples can, understandably, be seen in Venice, Italy. Baird was an innovator in the use of steam power for cutting marble. He eventually built, on the Schuylkill River, the largest establishment for the sawing and manufacture of marble in the United States.
The mausoleum was commissioned by Mrs. Spotts, the widow of Capt. Harry I. Spotts, a popular Louisville steamboat captain. The lines and the overall shape of the mausoleum (only the front is seen in the photograph), are reminiscent of a funeral barge, perhaps a nod to Capt. Spott’s career on the Ohio River.
Photos and text © Douglas Keister Visit Doug’s Author Page
[address cemetery=”Cave Hill Cemetery” street=”701 Baxter Avenue” city=”Louisville” state=”Kentucky” zip=”40204″]
Irvin Mausoleum
Noted Louisville architect Henry Whitestone designed this modified Gothic Revival mausoleum for James F. Irvin in 1867. Whitestone drew his inspiration from the Greffulhe family mausoleum designed by A.T. Brongniart ca.1816, in Pére Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. A description of the Irvin mausoleum appeared in the April 16, 1871, edition of The Louisville Daily Commercial . The newspaper described the “Scotch granite” columns, dome and exterior walls and noted the different varieties of marble used on the interior surfaces. The newspaper went on to describe the crypts as, “four depositories for coffins, with marble doors, awaiting their inmates.”
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