Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Author: Father Pitt

  • McKown Obelisk, Melrose Cemetery

    This is a fairly standard obelisk with some extra ornamentation to make sure it is not too plain for Victorian taste. There must be an interesting family story in the inscription. Alfred McKown married a woman more than thirty years younger than he was. When he died, it seems that the 29- or 30-year-old widow married a man named Clark. She did not live to see forty, and she is memorialized here. If she is buried here, one wonders what became of Mr. Clark.

    The name “Blacks” appears below the inscription; is it the name of the stonecutter or monument dealer?

  • Gilmore-Donaldson Stump, Melrose Cemetery

    A typical rustic stump, and not the most artistic one Father Pitt has seen. The “Gilmore” inscription appears to be the original one, with “Donaldson” added later. The idea of bark peeled away to reveal the family name is clever, but some effort should have been put into making the peeled-away bark match the shape of the section from which it is supposed to have been peeled away.

    This stump stands in the middle of the Donaldson family plot, which is marked by four small rustic stumps at the corners—something old Pa Pitt has never seen before.

  • Teyssier Monument, Melrose Cemetery

    A very odd monument; on a rustic slab, botanical reliefs (lilies, ferns, ivy) surround what looks like a televisor from the old Flash Gordon serials.

  • Warden Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

    In some ways this is the oddest monument in the Allegheny Cemetery, though in that category it faces some very stiff competition. It is an Egyptian-style canopy of sandstone over a marble statue that has almost entirely disintegrated. In fact we know the name “Warden” only from the cemetery’s site. We can barely make out the words “Little George” under the remains of the statue.

    The Egyptian style is remarkable enough for the middle 1800s, but this monument is odder than the few other remnants of the first Egyptian revival. The pattern of holes in the sandstone seems to have been made by an amateur with too much time on his hands. The winged sun disk or scarab is the earliest occurrence of that symbol Father Pitt has found anywhere in Pittsburgh; it would later become ubiquitous on mausoleums of the second Egyptian Revival in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

  • Schoonmaker Monument, Homewood Cemetery

    A beautiful bronze angel lays a well-deserved palm on the monument to James Martinus Schoonmaker, who as a 22-year-old colonel in the Union Army led a charge that, years later, earned him the Medal of Honor. Of course, gallantry in combat does not bring in the sort of money that buys extraordinary works of art for one’s grave. That came from the coke industry and the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad.