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" Why seek ye the living among the dead?"-Luke xxiv : 5. [By permission of Erastus Dow Palmer.]
-
THE ALBANY
RURAL + CEMETERY
ITS BEAUTIES ITS MEMORIES
ill BY HENRY P. PHELPS
ALBANY PHELPS AND KELLOGG AND CHICAGO 1893
3 -
1 8 12
1
ponte from type
Copyright, 1592 By HENRY P. PHEITS
Pilotog MpreEy Pn Machonast A bany alap v and Presswork 'y Brandow Printing Com any. \ n
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
T HIS book is the outgrowth of a proposition on the part of the trustees to publish a brief history of the Albany Cemetery Association, including a report of the consécration oration, poom and other exercises.
It was suggested that it might be well to attempt some- thing more worthy of the object than a mere pamphlet, and this has been done with a result that must speak for itself.
While it would be impracticable to mention here all who have kindly aided in the work, the author desires to express his particular obligations :
To Mr. Dudley Olcott, MMr. Erastus D. Palmer, and Mr. Abraham Van Fechten, of the board of trustees, for the interest they have manifested and the encouragement they have given.
To Supt. Jeffrey P. Thomas and Mr. John F. Shafer for their valuable assistance.
To the Brandow Printing Company for the character- istic care they have bestowed upon the typography and the press-work.
And to Mr. Pirie MacDonald, who, bringing to the project of illustration all the enthusiasm of an amateur, has been able to combine therewith, not merely the acquired skill of the professional, but that much varer qualifica- tion, the gift of aesthetic intuition which is absolutely necessary to raise the camera from the plane of mechanics to the realm of art.
HENRY P. PHELPS.
Brookside avenue, Menands,
.Albany, N. Y., Dec. 1, 1992.
" For some we loved, the loveliest and the best That from his vintage rolling Time has prest, Have drunk their cup a round or two before, And one by one crept silently to rest." -Omar Khayyam.
CONTENTS.
Page
PRELIMINARY 16
HISTORICAL
31
Hon. D. D. Barnard's Oration 50
DESCRIPTIVE 85
The South Ridge 92
The Middle Ridge 169
The North Ridge 200
BIBLIOGRAPHY 215
INDEX 217 .
ILLUSTRATIONS.
" Why Seek ve the Living . Among the Dead ?" Frontispiece [By permission of Erastus Dow Palmer. |
Map of the Albany Rural Cemetery Pages 12-13
Facing Page
Eastern Entrance 16
The Southern Gate 24
Head of Consecration Lake 32
Lake Tawasentha 40
Alfred Billings Street
16
[ From an old steel engraving. ]
" All these fair grounds with lavish beauties spread,
Nature's sweet charms- we give them to the dead." 48
Portrait of Hon. Daniel D. Barnard 52
[ From an old lithograph. ]
On the Tour, west of Summit Ridge 56
Near Cypress Water 6.4
Consecration Lake 70
Portrait of Rev. Bartholomew F. Welch. D. D.
[ From an old and faded photograph. ]
Portrait of Thomas W. Oleott 76
Portrait of Erastus Corning So
[From a photograph in Steary. ]
Eastern Lodge and Office So
The Chapel The Cascade 90
ILLUSTRATION
Facing Page
Religion Consoling Sorrow
96
On Ravine Side War 10.4
Van Vechten 112
Douglas L. White 116
Gen. Schuyler's Monument 120
The Angel of the Sepulchre . 128
[By permission of Erastus Dow Palmer. ]
Gibbons-Mather 134
The Root Family Vault 138
Weed-Alden-Barnes ot 1
Van AAlstyne 142
Masonic Burial Plat
143
George C. Cook
144
Daniel Manning
146
B. W. Wooster
150
Western Lodge
152
The Angel of Sorrow
154
Dver Lathrop
162
William Appleton
166
Townsend 170
Thomas W. Olcott
173
AAmasa J. Parker 177
Dr. S. B. Ward 184
Jesse C. Potts 192
John V. L. Pruyn 196
The Soldiers' Plat 205
The Mills Monument 208
The Visscher Vault
210
F
س
م
Fern. 100 Path
ALDER -COPSE
+
83
Rose
98
VISTA 95 HILL
MYRTLE84 Mrelle
99
97
t
9 4
8
96
+
HILL
93
88
Hos
MEADOW-
92
+
89
86.
Walk
Kron
Kill
90
WILD
50
VALLEY
48 t
51
PINE
FOREST +
HILL
West.TR.
+
+
52
+ 53
45
46
.RS
1
5
Western.ivenna
High Rock "> Spray
B
+
121
5.4
Sinto Quarry
SUNNY
SEC
20
120
TULIP HILL
@Spring
t
T
18
10.49
104
LAWN
OAK
WOOD
Timiand.
SP
24
ove
Avenue
Maple Spring
+
102
t
14 Eyyyperu
Milk
40
HILL
GROVE
4 4
t
VIOLET
PATH
JOORDENAERE
+
WILD
KILL
EVERGREEN
FLOWER
+
Por
106
26
42
SPRING
110
107
vita
3
Hawthorn
Avenue
+
LILLY DALE
+
33
27
109
123
108
Cypress Avenue
CYPRESS HILL
cypress
NE pedsosd
Cor
29
Avenue
122
2
WM HOWARD HAR
U
M MIT
RID
112
16
S ON
SET
+
1
luan Avenue
21
103 -22
S
7P
SYLVAN DELL
15
1
+
13
105
OAK
DELL
25
Forestan
t
43
+
LAUREL
HILL
COLO
Flower 34
PAR
DAISY
f
Hawthorn, Avenue
Grove Sile A
Cypress
WennA
31
28
Mount Auburn
30
PROSPECT
+
CYPRESS WATER
LAWN
Cypress
G. A. Hartman
E
ANSHE EMETR CEMETERY
49
CHURCH GROUNDS
47;
Tent
mest Cottage
KILL
Rurinc
OR
Western Entrance
SIDE
LAW.N
t
23
19
Ravine
WOOD
Mary
Meadow
Verna
la rose Prenne
mid
Clematis Path
t
t
Rosclear
Ave. Datlan
+
91
Denue
R
GARDE WIRS LODGE
82
78
69
0 :
68
79
+
+
LANDSCAPE 77 +
80
1
76
+
71
SUNRISE
67
ER
WOOD
73
scarse
72
H
75
ARBOR HILL
3 0Y 19
65
₡66
t
Side
65
Kri
Kill
JAMES
GAZELEY
64+
60
D
NILL
58
61
CHAPEL
56
+
CRESCENT
61
GLADE
+
62
57
SulphurSp
63
+
FOR EST GLEN
ROSELAND HILL
1 10
9
1
Meditation Walk
?
8
2
8
6
OLIVE!
SUMMER + 4
WILL
+
1
Everyprezent
Path
OFFICE
WAITING ROOMS
1
woOO 39
38
Spenning
37
FERN
1
+35
36
LEAF
29
32
T
32
ST. AGNES : CEMETERY
OF POT
RÅIL ROAD
CALBI
RURAL
(CEMETER
ESTABLISHED OCT 7. IS14
AND
59
BOWER HILL
Having Side Way
Lesnut
1
+
Mourdenvers Kill
Rinun Walk
+
CHAPEL
Spring
GROVE
Land
MOUNT
duiatt
12
MOUNT
+
7
TOWEB
3 8
JAMES GAZELEY
AVENUE
TROY ROAD
FORES _AVE,
70
U
Walnut Avenne
HILL
LAWN
C
Pine Bonuk Ner
EN 87 +
75
MASEGUIA PATH
SOLDIERS GROUNDS
TERRAC
BARN
SHEO
J. B. JERMAIN
74
HILL
Tuche IMENALS
stern. fuente
t
bangecration Path
RESTA
5
OLIVET
C
1
The Eastern Entrance. [From the Troy road.]
PRELIMINARY.
THIE custom of reverently caring for the remains of the
dead, and for the places of their burial, has its origin deep down among the fundamental principles by which human affairs are regulated.
As natural as the love of life itself is the desire to be remembered -at least, as Hamlet, with melancholy sar- casm observes,
-" for half a year !"
Few of us expect our names will outlive centuries ; thousands upon thousands care little for epitaph, or monu- ment or posthumous fame of any degree; but he must be something more or less than human who is not made a little happier by the belief, that so long as those he loves survive him, his grave will not be wholly forsaken or neglected.
Thus it is that the powerful motive of self-love prompts, in some degree, the regard which is generally felt for places of sepulchre, and the liberality with which they are embel- lished and maintained.
Another feeling more creditable to human nature, because less selfish, leads us to hold the graves of our
ci
18
THE ALBANY RURAL. CEMETERY.
loved ones in such affection and reverence as we bestow upon no other spot on earth.
Our birth-places, the homes of our childhood, the scenes of early pleasures and early sorrows, places en- deared in later life by what we have enjoyed, or made sacred by what we have suffered -all have their own peculiar associations, but none are so deep, so tender or so lasting, as those which cluster around the resting-places of our dead.
Vain is the attempt to reason this sentiment out of existence. It is as okl as the race; it has its birth in the affections; it has been nurtured by the poets of all ages, and sanctioned by every religion worthy of the name.
From time immemorial, also, it has been an incentive to patriotism, and next to
"God and your native land."
has been ranged
" the green graves of your sires,"
as a thought with which to strengthen the arm and nerve the heart against the invader of the soil.
Of course, we know that what is deposited in the grave with such loving care is only
" an empty sea shell -- one Out of which the pearl is gone ;"
that the spirit has fled to God, who gave it ; we know that what remains soon becomes terribly the reverse of all that is lovely and attractive -that Mother Earth. in her great and abiding tenderness, hides from us what otherwise would freeze our souls with horror.
19
BELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION.
And yet, what mother can thus be argued from her darling's grave ? She will say with Lowell :
"Your logic, my friend, is perfect, Your morals most drearily true ; But, since the earth clashed on her coffin. I keep hearing that, and not you.
There's a narrow ridge in the churchyard, Would scarce stay a child in his race, But to me and my thought it is wider Than the star sown vague of space."
" I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting."
The sentence falls daily from the lips of millions, often, perhaps, without thought of its real significance, but it expresses the intellectual belief and spiritual expectation of a vast number who thus avow their creed and their religion. And it is not surprising that to those who accept the literal meaning of the words, the place where reposes the clay which is to be "raised a spiritual body," should possess a peculiarly sacred character ; nor that, in spite of the philosophical and sanitary claims of crema- tion as a means of disposing of the dead, the practice has thus far gained little favor among those who believe in a future for the human body. And it is not merely a coincidence that those who express a desire to become subjects for incineration are almost without exception those who have " outgrown " the belief that anything awaits the body of a human being other than that which awaits the body of a beast.
20
THE ALBANY RURAL CEMETERY.
VERY early in the history of the race did this sentiment
lead to the establishment of what we now call ceme- teries - how early, we do not know. Of the burial of our first parents, Adam and Eve, there is no authentic account, although tradition, with an eye to poetical effect, places the tomb of Adam upon Calvary. As to what was done with the body of the murdered Abel, the sacred record is silent. Cain built a city, but what became of its dead we can only surmise ; and whether the flood swept away sepulchres as well as habitations is also left to our imagination.
The first burial-place of which there is mention in the Bible is the cave of Machpelah, which was bought by Abraham in which to bury Sarah, the wife of his bosom, dead at the age of 127. She died in Kirjath-arba, "the same is Hebron, in the land of Canaan ; and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her." Alone and among strangers, the stricken patriarch asked of the sons of Ileth possession of a burying-place among them " that I may bury my dead out of my sight." In vain did the sons of Heth offer him choice of their sepulchres : AAbraham wanted a place of his own, and selected the cave of Machpelah, which was at the end of the field belonging to Ephron the Hittite. And Ephron offered both field and cave to Abraham, but he would not accept the gift. So Ephron fixed the price at 400 shekels of silver which Abraham weighed to Ephron, "current money with the merchant."
2I
THE FIRST RURAL CEMETERY.
" And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure
"Unto Abraham for a possession, in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.
"And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre ; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.
"And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a bury- ing-place by the sons of Ileth."
Further on we read that Sarah's son Isaac, being "com- forted after his mother's death," in the love he felt for his wife Rebekah, whom he brought into his mother's tent ; and after Abraham, already stricken in years, had taken another wife, Keturah, by whom he had six sons, Abraham gave up the ghost and was gathered to his people.
"And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre :
" The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Fleth ; there was Abraham buried and Sarah his wife."
Thus, with curious attention to detail, is given the account of the purchase and establishment of this most famous of early cemeteries in which, surrounded by "all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders, round about," rested not only Abraham and Sarah, but 1
afterwards Isaac and Rebekah, and where later, as Jacob
22
THE ALBANY RURAL ( EMETERV.
said on his deathbed, "I buried Leah" ( Rachel, his best beloved wife dying in childbirth and being buried in the way to Ephrath, where Jacob set a pillar on her grave). Finally, at his own solemn request, Jacob, third in this great trio of patriarchs, was buried there, his embalmed body being carried up out of Goshen accompanied by all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, with chariots and horsemen, a very great company.
It was a famous funeral.
Notwithstanding this precedent, the descendants of Israel can not be charged with ostentation in their care for the dead, but they have always had public burial grounds. and one of their first duties on arriving in a new country was to select a spot for such purpose outside the city walls. That of Jerusalem was in the valley of Kedron.
The Greeks originally had burial places, but adopted from Phrygia the custom of burning the dead. The Romans practiced both burial and cremation. The ancient Egyptians provided for themselves tombs of great magnifi- cence. in which bodies were deposited after they had been embalmed, often after they had been kept for months in the house of which the deceased had been an inmate.
The word Cemetery : How many of usstop to think what it signifies ? How many of us realize, as did Chrysos- tom, that the very name, springing from the Greek word meaning " a sleeping place," carries with it always an em-
23
WILAT THE WORD CEMETERY SIGNIFIES.
bodiment of the Christian hope ? " For this reason the place is called a cemetery," said the Golden-mouthed Bishop, of the seventh century, "in order that you may learn that those who have finished their course and are laid here, are not dead but . sleep.'"
It is said (although the authorities do not agree ) that the early Christians first erected their churches upon plots of ground where were interred the remains of the holy mar- tyrs, and thus it is surmised grew up the custom of burial in church-yards, and in the churches themselves. The church, deriving a considerable income in the middle ages from burials, inculcated the importance of lying in conse- crated ground of which the church had control.
As great cities grew old, as one generation after another passed away and was laid within closely confined limits the natural consequence resulted. The ground was over- burdened and over-charged with a surplus of mortality.
In London fifty years ago the condition of the church- yards was scandalous to a degree that justified investiga- tion by a parliamentary committee. We are told :
" The vaults under the pavements of the churches, and the small spaces of open ground surrounding them, were literally crammed with coffins. In many of the buildings the air was so tainted with the products of corruption as to be a direct and palpable source of disease and death to those who frequented them. In the church- yards coffins were placed tier above tier in the graves until they were within a few feet (or sometimes even a few inches) of the sur- face, and the level of the ground was often raised to the level of the lower windows of the church. To make room for fresh inter- ments the sextons had recourse to the surreptitious removal of bones and partially decayed remains, and in some cases the con- tents of the graves were systematically transferred to pits adjacent
THE ALBANY RURAL CEMETERY.
to the site, the grave-diggers appropriating the coffin plates, handles and nails to be sold as waste metal."
These shameful abuses were finally corrected by the Burial act of 1855, by which the London church-vards, with few exceptions, were closed, and burials within the limits of English cities and towns are now virtually pro- hibited, or surrounded with such safeguards as to make a repetition of such conditions impossible.
What seems with us a natural right of every individual to six feet of ground is not regarded in some of the coun- tries of continental Europe. For instance : In one of the Naples cemeteries numerous burials are said to take place daily in a series of 365 pits. One pit is opened each day, the dead are laid in it, and it is filled with earth and lime. A year afterward the pit is opened, the contents removed, fresh earth is placed in its stead and the pit is ready for fresh interments, to be disposed of in the same way a year later. The subjects of such hasty treatment are, of course, the poor, and in Paris, although the time the same unfortu- nate class are permitted to rest undisturbed is longer (five years), at its close all crosses and memorials are removed, the level of the ground is raised four or five feet by fresh earth and interments begin again. For fifty francs a concession temporaire for ten years can be obtained, but unless a lot is bought and paid for, no permanent monu- ment can be erected.
In Turkey, on the contrary, it is considered sacrilege to disturb the dead ; hence a new grave is always opened for every corpse, and the cemeteries around Constantinople
5
The Southern Gate. [Menands road.]
.
25
CEMETERIES IN TURKEY.
and other large cities in that country, have become very extensive. The practice of planting by the grave of every Mussulman a cypress has also converted them into dense forests.
A recent writer, says : "The Turks enjoin the Jews, Greeks, AArmenians and Franks to plant their cemeteries with other trees, but reserve the cypress exclusively to themselves. The cypress has from early ages been a funeral tree. The ancient Greeks and Romans so considered it, and the Turks, when they entered Europe, adopted it. Its solemn shade, casting .a dim, religious light' over the tombs it covers ; its aromatic resin, exuding from the bark and correcting by its powerful odor the cadaverous smell exhaled from dissolving mortality ; and above all, its ever- green and undying foliage, exhibiting an emblem of the immortal part when the body has mouldered into dust and perished -all these have recommended it to the Mussul- man and made it the object of his peculiar care. It is an oriental practice to plant a tree at the birth and another at the death of any member of the family. When one, therefore, is deposited in the earth the surviving relatives place a cypress at the foot of the grave, and the pious son, whose birth his father had commemorated by a platanus, is now seen carefully watering the young tree which is to preserve the undying recollection of his parent.
"The cemetery of Scutari in Asia, at the mouth of the Bosphorus, is the most striking and extensive in the Turk- ish empire. It stretches up an inclined plane, clothing it with its dark foliage like a vast pall thrown over the de-
3
26
THE ALBANY RURAL CEMETERY.
parted. It extends nearly four miles, and is pierced by various avenues. Such is its size that it is said the area it encloses would supply the city with corn, and the stones which mark its graves would rebuild the walls."
The cemetery of Pisa in Italy, called the Campo Santo, has given the name to burial grounds throughout that country. It is a court 490x 170 feet, surrounded by arcades of marble sixty feet high, adorned with sculpture and paintings. In its centre is a mound of earth said to have been brought from Palestine during the crusades.
The constituent assembly of France passed an act in 1791, prohibiting interments within the limits of cities. and in 1804 Pere Lachaise (then outside the city of Paris) was authorized. It is considered the prototype of the garden cemeteries of Western Europe, and is one of the show places of the gay city, not only on account of the eminent dead who are buried within its 200 acres, but be- cause its hills and valleys are covered with every variety of memorial architecture, numbering in all some 16,000. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in speaking of this and other sim- ilar cemeteries, says :
" A cemetery at home suggests awkward possibilities ; but nothing of the kind occurs to you in rambling through a foreign burial ground. You wander along the serpen- tine walk as you stroll through a picture gallery. You as little think of adding a mound to the one as you would of contributing a painting to the other. You survey the monoliths and the bas-reliefs, and the urns and the minia- ture Athenian temples from the stand-point of an unbiased
27
DANGERS TO HEALTH EXAGGERATED.
spectator who has paid his admittance fee, and expects some entertainment or instruction. Some of the pleas- antest hours I passed in sight-seeing were spent in grave- vards."
While this feeling or want of feeling may, in part, be due to the fact that the indifferent spectator has
"no friend. no brother there."
it is no doubt prompted, in some degree, by the spectacu- lar effects of these " garden cemeteries," an improvement on the crowded church-yards, but yet lacking the character- istics which make the rural cemeteries of America the most appropriate of all places wherein the dead await the resurrection.
The dangers to health that may arise from cemeteries is a theme much dwelt upon by some writers, sensational and otherwise, but the general opinion is, that perils from this source have been greatly over-rated. They are alleged to spring from three sources : Air pollution from gases gener- ated by decaying animal matter ; water pollution from chainage into wells and other sources of supply, and in- fection in case of the r -opening of graves of those who had died of contagious diseases. There are no facts at hand to show that where cemeteries have been well kept, any such trouble has resulted. The earth itself is a won- derful purifier, and while caution is always desirable and necessary, particularly in relation to the purity of a pota- ble water supply, the dangers from a well-ordered ceme- tery are so remote as to be considered almost wholly imaginary.
28
THE ALBANY RURAL CEMETERY.
IF the earth were to last forever or had always existed in its present condition ; if, as Goethe has pointed out, there were no law to prevent trees from growing into the sky: if there were no glacial periods, no sun spots, no overturning of the general order, we could imagine the world itself becoming in time - or rather in eternity - one great cemetery, and all the dust upon its bosom to have been animated with human life. The poets have found this a favorite idea, as witness Omar Khayyam, the astron- omer poet of Persia, speaking through his interpreter Edward Fitzgerald (or vice versa, as some believe ):
" I sometimes think that never blows so red The rose as where some buried Cæsar bled ; That every hyacinth the garden wears Dropt in her lap from some once lovely head.
" And this reviving herb whose tender green Fledges the river-lip on which we lean - Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows From what once lovely lip it springs unseen?
" Then to the lip of this poor earthen urn I lean'd, the secret of my life to learn : And lip to lip it murmur'd - . While you live, Drink !- for, once dead, you never shall return.'
" I think the vessel, that with fugitive Articulation answer'd, once did live, And drink; and ah! the passive lip I kiss'd, How many kisses might it take-and give!
" For I remember stopping by the way To watch a potter thumping his wet clay : And with its all-obliterated tongue It murmur'd -'Gently, brother, gently, pray!'
29
BRYANT'S " THANATOPSIS."
" Listen -a moment listen ! - Of the same Poor earth from which that human whisper came The luckless mould in which mankind was cast They did compose, and call'd him by the name.
" And not a drop that from our cups we throw For earth to drink of, but may steal below To quench the fire of anguish in some eye There hidden -far beneath, and long ago."
Eight centuries later the young author of "Thana- topsis," who probably had never heard of Omar, made mtich the same thought the keynote of sublime contem- plation:
" The hills,
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods; rivers that move In mystery, and the complaining brooks, That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,- Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man!
" The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.
" Take the wings ()f morning, traverse Barca's desert sands, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save its own dashings, - yet the dead are there ! And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep, - the dead reign there alone!"
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