Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Category: Allegheny Cemetery

  • General Alexander Hays Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

    General Alexander Hays was something of a big deal in the Civil War, and we refer you to his Wikipedia article for more details. He died in 1864 at the Battle of the Wilderness. His monument, donated by his men, is a soldier’s monument through and through: eagle on top, crossed swords and banners, victor’s wreath, and the whole plot surrounded by upended cannons.

    The epitaph is from “The Bivouac of the Dead,” a famous poem by Theodore O’Hara, who fought on the side of the Confederacy in the Civil War. But it was a favorite poem for dead soldiers anyway.

  • Thomas B. Dunn Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

    Thomas B. Dunn died at the Battle of Five Forks in 1865, less than a week before Lee surrendered at Appomattox. This elaborate romantic trophy-tombstone crowds every symbol of martial victory into a busy but harmonious composition. (Although much of the inscription is obliterated, cemetery records confirm that the half-obscured family name is Dunn.)

  • Thomas Ridgeway Holmes Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

    Thomas Ridgeway Holmes was born in 1816  and died in 1859, and that is the sum of what Father Pitt knows about him. He has no presence on the Internet, as far as Google can tell—except an occasional reference to this monument. But he must have been rather wealthy: his monument suggests that he dealt in shipping and in geared and belted machines of some sort—a sawmill, perhaps? The reliefs are eroded, but it looks like a circular saw to the left of the second picture below. Is the hexagon a ship’s wheel? Then perhaps his business was shipbuilding, and it all fits together.

  • Rook Column, Allegheny Cemetery

    An elaborate Corinthian column erected in 1881 for Alexander Rook, an editor of the late lamented Dispatch. The recording angel is a particularly good one, and figures of hope and faith flank the column.

  • Reed Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

    The earliest burial in the shadow of this monument seems to be Nelson P. Reed in 1891, which we may take as the approximate date of the monument. The figure on the top clutching a cross is a good though not great piece of sculpture, and it is very striking silhouetted against the right kind of sky.