USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Chicago, the Garden city. Its magnificent parks, boulevards and cemeteries. Together with other descriptive views and sketches > Part 12
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The entrance is situated on 111th Street, east of the railroad station, and is flanked on the righthand side by the cemetery office, constructed nearly alto- gether out of the limbs and bark of trees, and over all climbing plants have woven an emerald awning. The cultivation of plants and flowers is carried on within three roomy green-houses which have a length of one hundred feet each. The public vault, situated in close proximity to the plant houses, has a capacity for holding five hundred coffins; there are many elegant and costly monuments, of which a few only may be mentioned. The one most prominent and conspicuous among them is the obelisk of the dead philantropist, Karl Chlich; it towers into the air to a height of thirty-three feet and is crowned by a female figure, symbolizing Hope. The wife of Uhlich, four of their chil- dren, and Henry Klein, an old and trusted friend of the Uhlich family, are all buried in the shadow of the obelisk. Of the other monuments, those of Her- man Vanderbelt, Mary Adelheid Brockway, Wm. Morgan, (Blue Island), N. B. Rexford, Benjamin Kayler ( the original owner of the land ), the "Elks," Edgar Johnson Goodspeed, Walter Pride Cottle, etc, have great artistic merit.
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MT. OLIVET.
This Catholic cemetery is situated directly opposite the entrance to Mt. Greenwood, south of One hundreth and eleventh street, from where it extends as far as One hundred and fifteenth street. Like Mt. Greenwood and Mt. Hope it is located on high and hilly ground and therefore even in the wettest season the ground remains dry and is therefore. all the more suitable for the purpose it is intended for. This cemetery with its abundance of stately oaks has more the resemblance of a sylvan grove than of a city of the dead. It contains eighty acres, of which about half are in use. The dedication of this beautiful "Gods' Acre" took place June 28th, 1885, and since that time over 4000 bodies have been laid to rest there.
Mt. Olivet is under the same management as Calvary Cemetery. The land was purchased in September, 1884, from the late Judge Beckwith, and June 17th, of the following year the first burial took place there. The gen- eral appearance of Mt. Olivet gives evidence of the fact, that an carnest and successful effort is made to keep the grounds in good trim, and to permit noth- ing which might prove an eyesore or challenge unfavorable criticism.
Among the monuments seen here and there the one erected by the Irish Nationalists is the most conspicuous; it is a granite obelisk thirteen feet high. Other memorials worthy of mention are those of Abraham Raimburg, James Shay, John Flannigan, Carl Miller, Martin Hogan, William Pauly, P. C. Mc- Donald, etc.
This cemetery is provided with a water-windmill and other facilities for assisting nature in its work of beautifying this forest-like burial ground, by which the latter admirably succeeds in assuming the character of a cheerful park and in losing more and more those features that gave to it at first a gloomy and dismal appearance.
The establishment of Mt. Olivet has proven a great convenience for the Catholics residing in the extreme southern parts of our city, who in former times were compelled to travel from 15 to 20 miles each way when accomp- anying a deceased relative or friend way out north to Calvary Cemetery.
It is the intention of the management to build a large receiving-vault at Mt. Olivet in the near future, and from what we have observed in Calvary, the twin-brother of Mt. Olivet, the latter will certainly in due time be still more embellished and improved and then it will be one of the most attractive park- cemeteries of our city.
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CUMMING CHERRY
6 .4
Rosehill .- Monument of Prof. Cumming Cherry.
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MOUNT HOPE.
This beautiful Park Cemetery is situated on that ridge of wooded hills, southwest of the city, commonly known as Washington Heights, and directly west of, and adjoining Morgan Park. This location was decided upon after a careful survey of all the available property for such purposes, in Cook County, south and west of the city. It is emphatically the best selection that could have been made. It consists of three hundred acres in a compact body. The association has a capital of $600,000.00, and for five years has had a large force of men working under the direction of the best obtainable engineers and landscape gardeners, in bringing this immense property to a state of perfection.
No money has been spared in making this cemetery, what its founders intend it shall be-the model cemetery of the country. They have erected a fine stone chapel, depot, waiting rooms and office, costing about $20,000. The public vault is the most complete of any in the west, and contains one hundred and sixty separate iron compartments. The splendid growth of native oaks, which cover the hills, has been interplanted by an immense number of all varieties of ornamental trees and shrubs. The finely paved roads that traverse the grounds in all directions, and wind among the hills, produce a most pleasing and finished effect. The lake, the flowers, the turf ; all combine to make it an ornamental park, in the truest sense of the word. An abundant supply of pure water for all purposes is furnished from an artesian well. Steam pumping works distribute this over the cemetery, through a system of iron pipes. Although it lies 100 feet above the level of Lake Michigan and the soil is of the most suitable character for cemetery pur- poses-yet that there might be no possible doubt as to its freedom from water -these natural advantages have been supplemented by an elaborate system of surface and under drainage. The beauty of the cemetery is marvelous. No pen picture can do it justice. It must be seen to be appreciated.
When this cemetery was laid out and beautified, Chicago had another park added to those which have already made her world-famous. But it differs from the pleasure grounds in which the toiling thousands take their rest every Sunday in the summer; for in the new garden where art and nature vie with each other in creating a scene of loveliness, every day will be a Sab- bath and the beauty will be consecrated not to the living but to the dead.
The enterprise which has selected these grounds on Washington Heights -aimed to give to a great city another park cemetery, which is worthy of its greatness and represents in its highest developement the advanced taste which the present century has brought to bear upon the resting place of the dead. Not only is the civilization of a people expressed in the avenues of palatial homes and in the imposing edifices of commerce, but also in the condition of their places of sepulture. The tomb is to the future the witness of the present ; it carries to posterity the records of a genera- tion's ideals, whether they be high or low, debased or noble. In the monu- ments of the antique world we read the history of her tyranny, of her superstition, of her moments of enfranchisement and of her years of darkness ; and the enlightenment of this age-the enlightenment of wide- spread education, charity and freedom-will not be less truly mirrored in the cemeteries which we establish and adorn and which we leave for the edification of posterity. It would be strange if the progress of knowledge, which has done so much for the material comforts of life and the beauti- fying of homes, did not also rob death of some of its distressing associa- tions and make the last of all homes more endurable to man's contem-
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płation. Science has not been idle in this respect. Seconded by the growing sense of human refinement, she has in the last few years removed the dis- agreeable features remaining from the practices of the past, and has invested places of interment with suggestions of beauty that are pleasing to the senses and elevating to the soul. The old style of graveyard, with its rectan- gular form, its huddled hillocks which seem to cry out against the parsimony of earth in not affording ample resting place to her children, and in its dis- cordant and often distasteful and memorial symbols, is happily now a thing of the past, and one that can never be recalled. Hereafter the parks in which the living take their pleasure shall not be more enchanting than those where peace guards the pillow of rest. It must be said that Chicago is not first among the cities in the idea of an ornamental cemetery, though she is easily first in her parks and boulevards and her avenues of architectural splendor.
The promoters of park cemeteries have to fight some lingering prejudices in the minds of people who look with apprehension upon any departure from custom ; but these prejudices disappear when it is made plain that the new departure is in the interest both of economy and of estheticism. How much better is it, for instance, that the money spent upon stone copings and iron railings (barriers that imply the idea that some sort of outrage might be pos- sible) were devoted instead to raising a monument of enduring qualities and of truly artistic design. Experience has shown that railings and copings in- variably fall into disorder through exposure to the severe temperature, and the result is that every old fashioned cemetery has upon its hands constantly accumulating heaps of worthless stone and metal. Under the park plan, on the contrary, large and roomy lots may be utilized, where, instead of incum- brances in the shape of trivialities, one imposing shaft will serve as a family monument, and where the sloping, grassy borders will give an effect im- measurably more pleasing than that of forbidding hedges or of iron fences.
" The grave," says Washington Irving, "should be surrounded with everything that may insure tenderness and veneration. Can this be done by having burial lots enclosed with stone posts, iron bars and chains, the sight of which is repulsive in the extreme, as it conveys the idea of rudeness and con- finement?"
To everyone who is engaged in the busy struggle of existence it is now consoling to know that his last resting place shall be made amidst scenes that will charm rather than distress the beholder, and that will induce the visitor to linger and feel half-loth to return to the busy haunts of men. The idea is at once so tender and universal that it is not surprising that America's most Horatian poet-William Cullen Bryant-should have given it the most ex- quisite expression :
I know, I know I should not see The season's glorious show ; Nor would its brightness shine for me Nor its wild music flow ; But if around my place of sleep
The friends I love should come to weep, They might not haste to go. Soft airs and song and light and bloom
Should keep them lingering by my tomb. These to their softened hearts should bear The thoughts of what has been,
And speak of one who cannot share The gladness of the scene. Whose part in all the pomp that fills The circuit of the summer hills Is-that his grave is green. And deeply would their hearts rejoice To hear again his living voice.
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FOREST
HOME.C.
Entrance to Forest Home.
1
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FOREST HOME.
This cemetery is situated between West Madison and West Twelfth Sts., about four and one half miles west of the present City Limits, and embraces the most beautiful part of the once celebrated Haase's Park, comprising nearly one hundred acres of land. These grounds have gained a wide reputation for the beauty of their natural scenery; in fact their equal in that respect can not be found around Chicago. No spot could be more advantageously situated than the location of FOREST HOME, it being fifty-six feet above the level of Lake Michigan and the crown of the water-shed between the Atlantic and the Gulf. The water running from the roof of a house on the grounds on one side finds the St. Lawrence, while the drops that fall on the opposite side go to the Mississippi.
Comparatively few people in Chicago know what beautiful glimpses of Nature in her restful moods lie within easy reach of the city. The wheelmen are finding some of them, and every Sunday numbers of bicycles may be seen on the way west to the woods that border the Desplaines river. Artists too have learned of these spots, and views on the Desplaines are now to be seen at our art expositions both in oil and water colors. Years before the white man had come into this Western country the Indians had perceived the beauties of the natural park that borders the river between Harrison and Twelfth Streets, and had consecrated it to burials, and to-day there still remains undisturbed an Indian mound-the final record of a departed race. The Indian always selected for his camp and his burial Nature's choicest spots, and civilization has, in this place at least, confirmed his judgment and renewed the conseera- tion-the limits of the Indian park now marking the boundaries of the most beautiful cemetery about Chicago. The prodigality of Nature in this beauti- ful spot seems to have inspired the management of the FOREST HOME CEME- TERY with a love of the beautiful. All improvements must be made on one general plan, and it is the aim to add to the natural beauties instead of dis- pelling them. "How appalling," says an eminent writer upon this subject,
"are the acres of square plats and stone and iron inclosures that thrust the notion of property into your face at every turn, and at once break up the ex- pression of the landscape and the thought that becomes the resting place of the dead." A glance at either of the views in FOREST HOME shows that in this resting place no such feeling comes to friend or stranger-Nature's beauties are unbroken. The visitor feels that his sympathy is not shut out by iron or stone, but that here private sorrow is lifted into universal fellowship. The "lawn system" adopted by the management is the system forshadowed in the article quoted from.
Notwithstanding its natural wildness and rural beauty, it is the most accessible of Chicago cemeteries. The Wisconsin Central and the electric cars on Madison Street land passengers almost at the gates of FOREST HOME. It is also connected with the city by well-kept roads on Madison and Twenty-second Sts. and Riverside Boulevard. A natural elevation in one part of the grounds has been taken advantage of by the management to erect a new vault for tempo- rary purposes. It has an iron and glass roof just even with the surface of the ground, and runs back into the mound, leaving only the front in view, which opens upon a roadway extending along the face of the mound. A continuation of this elevation gives an opportunity for those preferring this manner of sep- ulture, to build and own private vaults, which can be entered from the drive.
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Among the names of those who have secured resting places for their dead there are many of the prominent residents of our city and western suburbs. Handsome monuments mark the grave of Philander Smith, for many years a leading citizen of Oak Park; similar memorials adorn the beautiful lots of Edward G. Uihlein, a resident of Chicago, of H. W. Austin, of C. H. Robin- son, and of S. E. Hurlbut, Joseph Kettlestrings and Reuben Whaples, who were the first settlers of Oak Park, are buried here; and lots belonging to Clarence Cross, S. E. Hurlbut, George Eckart, E. H. Pitkin, J. H. Hurlbut and many others are pointed out.
Forest Home is the only one of Chicago's cemeteries at which the lawn system governed exclusively from the beginning; hence the uniform park like appearance of the grounds so much admired by all visitors. Under this system no coping or other means of marking the boundaries of lots can be used, ex- cept corner stones, and these must not rise more than six inches above the surface, thus making it easy to keep the lawns uniform. The Cemetery Com- pany furnishes the corner stones with the name. of the owner cut upon them free of charge. Aside from this, those purchasing lots in Forest Home under this system are exempt from all charges or assessments for keeping their lots in good order. One of the most commendable features of this cemetery is the "Perpetual Care Fund" established by the company a few years ago. This fund is created and continually augmented by semi-annual payments of ten per cent of the receipts from sale of lots by the Cemetery Company, and is entirely under the control and for the benefit of lot owners, ensuring them against any neglect of the grounds at any time hereafter. Of the roads lead- ing to this cemetery, Madison Street, Riverside Boulevard and Twenty-second Street, should be preferred. Parties desiring to go by rail can take the Wis- consin Central main line to Forest Home Station, which is only a few blocks from the cemetery, or take the Electric Line from the terminus of West Madi- son Street cable car line to Forest Home.
As it was found desirable, that there be reserved, out of the gross income of this company, a fund to be used for the purpose of keeping in order, en- bellishing and improving the cemetery, at a time when the income from the sale of lots can no longer be used for that purpose by the Board of Directors, it was resolved, that there be created a fund, to be called the Forest Home Improvement Fund, which fund shall be under the sole and exclusive man- agement and control of a BOARD OF TRUSTEES to be called the Trustees of the Forest Home Improvement Fund. The fund in question shall be created in the following manner: The Board of Directors shall retain out of the gross proceeds of the sale of lots, a sum equal to ten per centum, and pay the same over to said Board of Trustees. The payments so to be made by the Board of Directors, shall cease, when the said fund reaches the sum of Twenty-five Thousand ( $25,000) Dollars, and the performance of this undertaking on the part of the Forest Home Cemetery Company may be enforced at any time by a proper proceeding in equity, to be instituted in the names of the members of the Board of Trustees.
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Scene in Forest Home.
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WALDHEIM CEMETERY.
Situated in the town of Harlem, on the Desplaines River, and about nine miles from the city, is a German cemetery of exceptional beauty in its general aspect as well as in the tasteful and pleasing manner in which the various sections of the grounds have been laid out and changed into so many bright and cheer- ful garden spots Like most of the other large cemeteries, Waldheim is open to all, and makes no distinction between the believer or unbeliever, between Christian, Jew or Heathen. The park-like grounds contain 80 acres of well drained land. about half of which is still covered with a dense wood of healthy oak trees, whose days however are numbered. During the last five or six years, improvements of a costly and quite an extensive character have been carried on here and wherever one casts his glance, he will see undoubted proofs of the earnest desire on the part the management, to leave nothing un- done, that might tend to give greater perfection to the general system and create a source of gratification for the lot owners and visitors as well. The remarkable success achieved by the management in this direction is due in a great measure to the untiring efforts of Mr. John Bühler, the secretary of the association, who devotes a great deal of his time to the active supervision of all matters concerning the cemetery, and to the good work done by Mr. George Schrade, the able superintendent. The management succeeded in inducing the Wisconsin Central Railroad to extend their tracks to the northeast corner of the enclosure on Desplaines Avenue, whereby it was made possible to bring the funeral trains within a few steps of the main entrance; besides these means of transportation the Electric Street Railway, which connects with the cable trains on Madison Street at West Fortieth Street, runs its cars up Desplaines Avenue to the imposing, castle like cemetery gate. The latter contains a spacious chapel on the right hand side and the business office of the superin- tendent on the left. From the books in this office can be ascertained. that the first interment took place on May 7, 1873, and that the bodies laid to rest there since, number more than 16,000.
Immediately after passing through the gateway and passing along the main drive leading therefrom, we find ourselves in the midst of a large open meadow, tastefully planted with trees and shrubs and further embellished by two small artificial lakes, their mirror-like surface reflecting the azure of the sky and the swiftly fleeing clouds. On each side of the well kept drives and paths stretches of fresh green turf meet the eye, relieved by the darker clumps of shrubs, by flowers and trees and by the scattered monuments, which indicate the purposes of the place.
Here a spacious burial-lot can be obtained at a moderate sum by every household, that shall remain an heirloom forever sacred and inviolate. Kin- dred of several generations can repose together, and they may adorn their burial place with such works of art. as affection shall dictate. And not only single families, but kindred and affiliated branches and societies may choose their resting places side by side, the ties of friendship and consanguinity, strong in life, not wholly sundered in death. Waldheim, the German for For- est Home, does not blind us to the fact of our mortality-it cannot and should not-but it brings the fact before us in the least forbidding form and in such connections, that, while we are subdued and solemnized, we are also sustained and cheered. So that, while we stand and look upon the grave, all manner of pleasant images risc before us. Waldheim is not a door leading into dark- ness, but the gate of glory, where friends come to say their last farewells. It is one of those cemeteries, happily becoming more and more numerous. where in a conspicious way, gardenesque adornment is especially noticeable, far dif- ferent from many of the old burying grounds, so forlorn and hideous, that the school-boy hurries past them in affright and both young and old shudder at the thought of being finally deposited there. It is near enough to the city, as to be easy of access at all seasons of the year and yet not so nigh, as to sac-
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rifice aught of its sacredness and privacy, or that it will ever be liable to en- croachment by the demands of commerce or population.
Waldheim, while not possessing the frigid stateliness of a public park, or the elaborate decorations and high finish of a suburban country-seat, is truly a secluded, cultivated scene, with no air of presumption or unfitting display and awakening no thoughts except those of security, repose, affectionate re- membrance, cheerful hope, in fine, the grounds wear an expression of solemn- ity and subdued beauty.
In reference to the portion yet covered with forest oaks, it is proposed to thin them out from year to year, removing first the oldest and those showing signs of decay, then the tall and meagre and finally all except those standing near the avenues or in certain spaces intended for driveways. It is no longer permitted to surround burial lots with unsightly iron palisades or stone enclos- ures, because the management is following the example set down by other progressive cemetery-gardeners, and long ago became determined to avail itself of the advantages offered by the lawn system.
The living owners of burial lots and graves seem to take great pride in the tasteful embellishment of those spots so dear to them, and they thereby greatly assist the cemetery management in their praiseworthy efforts, to press upon every thing within the enclosure the stamp of harmony and attractiveness. The number of neglected or forgotten graves is insignificantly small. Through- out the cemetery parterres of sweet scented flowers, picturesque trees and clumps of evergreens are scattered in the most appropriate spots. The beau- ties of the place, indeed, appear to be fully appreciated, for the garden, as we may not inappropriately call the grounds, are fairly filled with persons, not only on Sundays, but on every week day during the summer months, evi- dently enjoying the quiet, the pure air and the charming landscape.
Quite a number of German Societies are the owners of lots here, upon which some of them, the Druids and Odd Fellows for instance, have erected splendid monuments of great artistic merit. Besides these there are the Ger- man Society, German Altenheim, German Hospital, Aurora Turnverein, Turn- verein "Vorwaerts," Schleswig-Holstein Benevolent Society, Lodges from the Orders of Harngari and Sons of Hermann, Herder Lodge from the Order of Free Masons, Order of Red Men, Social Workingmens' Society of the West Side, etc. As is well known, the friends of the executed anarchists were per- mitted by the Waldheim Association to lay the bodies of their so called "Mar- tyrs" to rest in this cemetery. They were buried near the southern driveway in a very choice section of the grounds, where their common grave is crowned by a marble head stone, and covered with beds of flowers. The burial lot contains 1,500 square feet and is enclosed by an iron chain ; in the near future a large monument with allegorical figures is to take the place of the present low head stone. In the southwestern corner of the cemetery a Jewish congre- gation buries its dead.
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